Random story. I used OkCupid for 2 years and even tried Match and eHarmony for a time before swinging back to OkCupid again. I got desperate and sent a message (a well thought out one) to a cute girl that seemed to have a great personality and matched all of my wants, and to my surprise, got a reply back. In my few years on the sites I had gotten replies, but only ever 3 dates or so. So I was even more surprised when she agreed to a coffee date (tip #1, do a coffee date first, pay for your own and see if the other person is a match or is crazy). While on the date we realized that we both went to the same high school (in a town of 16,000) and she was two years ahead of me.
We ended up going on a few nice but subdued dates (takes a bit to get to know me well) before drifting apart and she dated someone else for a bit (we still chatted and joked a lot on Facebook chat during this time). Her relationship ended and I was frustrated one night by another OKC thing not working out after a week and randomly messaged her again and she agreed to another date.
Fast forward to now, we've been dating for 7.5 months and we're pretty sure that this will end in getting married. Moral of the story? Online dating does work, and even if it takes a while don't lose that drive, you could find the right person when you least expect it. Also keep some tabs on people you dated a bit and lost track of, they may be ready again.
If you would have told me a year ago that the half Filipino/half Pakistani girl I went on a few dinner dates with in January would want to give it a go again and she'd end up being the most amazing person I'd ever met and we'd likely end up getting married I'd have laughed and called you crazy, I was set with being the single guy in the family even, but look now, I landed my dream girl who is also my best friend all because of not giving up on online dating after years and persistence.
TL;DR Online dating works, even if it takes a long time.