I found my wife on Hinge in a suburban-bordering-rural part of the country (so not a lot of people on the apps in absolute terms) right before its acquisition and actually had better success broadly speaking on Bumble. The trick was, unfortunately, to pay for it. Have super likes or whatever they're called. Pay for the membership to see people who like me without having to swipe. Pay to boost my profile so more people see it and potentially like it. The worst part (for me), actually spend time curating photos and writing thoughtful answers to things - the former being much more important than the latter. Even with all of this I'd hit nights where I had seemingly swiped one way or the other on every eligible bachelorette within 100 miles. Maybe I had.

Unfortunately I don't have any reproducible or generalizable advice from meeting my wife. She was my only match on Hinge, neither of us paid for it, and we moved to phone conversation and dates within 48 hours.