The immediate cost of being alone is going down.
We need to understand, no matter how much a person has read or introspected their behaviour or are kind at their heart - no one will every be able to live up to the expectations of millions of people on internet.
This is why relationship advice on internet is such a joke, whenever anything happens, advice that's given to them is "leave this person, this person is abusive, manipulative, you deserve better". They follow the advice and end up alone and convince themselves that being alone is best.
Now, about the people who want to pursue romantic interests,the game is soo different now.
Long ago, girls from my town only dated local boys. They had to do with what's available to them locally but these days, one girl tells me that their boyfriend is coming to see them on weekend from Italy, while others boyfriend is coming from Greece, etc... Meanwhile men of town have drowned themselves in video games, porn and drinking/drugs because they've no meaningful relationships - they told me they feel like loser because girls aren't interested in them.
Yes, the men they are with are wayy better than what's available locally. Better according to preference of those girls, not according to me. Can I blame women for choosing best available to them? No. Many guys will do same provided they had the opportunity.
If romantic interests is not what you wanna pursue, it hardly matters if you are not very attractive - you can find plenty of people are church, at beach or anywhere where you see people. Finding people to spend time with us not difficult at all provided you can fulfill the minimum required to not put off the people.
I am pretty sure when people say they are lonely - they are talking about absence of people in their life who care about them or make efforts to make them happy or go out of their way to make them feel special, cared for, treasured. Who doesn't want this?
How technology can solve it?