To me internet friends and irl friends are in separate categories. They're two different things. I can get to know someone online and really enjoy talking to them, but in the end they're just online friends and will never mean more to me then the real friends I've made throughout my life. I keep a level of distance between me and online friends, and if I needed to talk to someone about life issues or whatever, it would never be someone I met online.

However, I realize a lot of people who frequent these kinds of sites are NEETs or just don't have many irl friends. I can't speak for everyone's situation, but I feel like online friends could be a good outlet in those cases.

At the end of the day would I personally consider them "real friends"? No, but I understand why some people would, and I see that to them they might actually be their "real friends".