AZ, I think for once you are saying something that I can back you up on.
Why do we need shadchanim at all? Why don’t we simply do as all the cynics are proposing, and do away with them completely? Let boys and girls mingle and find each other on their own?
The answer is simple. We don’t want our boys and our girls mingling. We are maintaining a high level of kedusha in our communities by keeping boys and girls separated from an early age. As a result, the chances of meeting the person that you are going to marry on your own is low.
There is a price to be paid for this hiddur, just like there is a price to pay for any hiddur. Just like there is a price for running our own school systems. Why do frum people pay thousands and thousands per child to send them to a frum school, when there are free options? Frum people realize that kedusha has a price, and it is worth paying for.
Shidduchim is no different. These boys and girls need a third party to make the connection. They need coaching, coaxing, and good advice from someone who can tell them how to deal with the opposite gender, because they have no experience of their own to guide them. This means that a disinterested third party has to do a lot of work so that two people can find each other – after spending their whole lives keeping as far apart as possible. While I’m sure that some shadchanim don’t care for payment and are satisfied with acquiring chessed, not all shadchanim feel this way and there is no reason why any shadchan has to be an altruist.
If you don’t want to deal with someone who needs to be paid, then by all means operate without the professional shadchan. It is your choice. But if you do use the shadchan, then you’d better be prepared to pay for it – just like you know that you (or your parents) had to pay for all those years of Hebrew school.