Yeah dudes who blindly take women out for no reason other than the fact that its tradition are definitely misguided.
Me personally that's not my thing, I meet a chick, make small talk and invite her over, if she declines there is no plan B where I offer to take her out.
This is because i value myself, my presentation is solid. I look at it like this, if a woman doesn't chose me off my initial presentation then anything else i do is simply setting myself up for failure.
More often than not, the man approached the woman, which is 99% of the work right there, then u have to make the conversation, make her feel comfortable just to name a few. If after all that plus maybe a couple of texts or calls and i still have to take her out just to enjoy her company, then ill pass. Its not that serious.
If you feel u are ugly, fat, short or any other short comings that you feel is holding u back, then work on those things while u do what u have to do to get women for the mean time.
But have a goal and work towards it, for example if you a trick and pay for sex, then simply save half that money and invest in something that is going to attract women if that's ur thing, such as a benz, bmw or anything to floss.
You shouldn't make ur life revolving around women of course but if u gun play the game and u not getting the results natural then sometimes u got to cheat ur way to victory.