[HN Gopher] Baby pics, life lessons, and obits: What happened to...
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       Baby pics, life lessons, and obits: What happened to LinkedIn?
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 56 points
       Date   : 2022-06-25 11:36 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (thewalrus.ca)
 (TXT) w3m dump (thewalrus.ca)
        
       | omershapira wrote:
       | Clay Shirky once casually said in a class, "Can criminals use
       | your app? How? If criminals can't use your app, no one can."
       | 
       | I think about this every time I see a thinkpiece about how a
       | public forum's gone south after incentivizing attention seeking.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | sys_64738 wrote:
       | Linkedin's only utility to me is to keep in contact with past
       | work colleagues and for recruitment purposes. Apart from that
       | it's filled with the usual garbage all these social webpages
       | have.
        
       | higeorge13 wrote:
       | LinkedIn feed has become unreadable due to what has been
       | mentioned in the article. I keep muting such content, aiming to
       | train the algorithm, but they keep appearing. And that leads to
       | unfollowing people posting or liking that kind of content.
        
         | mkmk wrote:
         | How do you mute content on LinkedIn? I was recently trying to
         | block a few words to improve the quality of my feed, and found
         | that I could only "unfollow" individuals. A mute word function,
         | a la twitter, would be great but I don't think it exists.
        
           | gnicholas wrote:
           | There's no effective way. On mobile web they limit you even
           | more in terms of the choices of why you want to hide a post.
           | Regardless, the algorithm seems entirely intransigent. It
           | still shows me posts in which someone I barely know 'likes'
           | that someone I will never meet graduated from college. I am
           | 40, so it's not even a good guess that I would know a recent
           | graduate (from a university I've never visited).
           | 
           | I think they don't give ways to modify the feed because it
           | would be nearly empty for most people once they opted out of
           | the various post types they aren't interested in. Then people
           | would realize there was no value and leave.
        
       | mathattack wrote:
       | They haven't made it any better in a decade. Except to make it
       | easier for Enterprise salespeople to spam me. Why doesn't a
       | competitor emerge?
        
       | Cherian_Abraham wrote:
       | Flagged this easy to spot scan profile a month ago, and it is
       | still up and thriving (100 connections added since)
       | 
       | https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-h-0b2519160
       | 
       | Between dark patterns, and an almost disregard to trust and
       | security - I feel any product focus at LinkedIn has long ago been
       | abandoned.
        
       | petesergeant wrote:
       | One thing that baffles me is the amount of connection spam.
       | Mostly because they sell a competing product (InMail), but seem
       | to really not care at all about people freeloading from them
       | using spam in connection invites instead.
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | There's pressure to use LinkedIn, even if you're not looking for
       | work.
       | 
       | I recently joined a standards group. They wanted my LinkedIn URL,
       | but not my Github URL.
        
       | mgh2 wrote:
       | Extensive analysis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30215033
        
       | remoquete wrote:
       | I only post work-related stuff on LinkedIn, and usually find
       | similar content in my feed. Having said that, I mute or unfollow
       | creators of the kind highlighted in the post. In some cases, I
       | remove the connection with whoever liked that content, and do it
       | without regrets. High quality contacts in my network almost never
       | shitpost.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Fantastic. As a non-user of LinkedIn, any indication of its
       | demise reduces my FOMO.
        
         | dopidopHN wrote:
         | I'm a early user and I don't think I ever posted there. But I
         | have to say : my last 3 jobs are 100% passive LinkedIn leads.
         | 
         | It's convenient and I would miss that I think ? But I tends to
         | be really ... average positions. It's a bonanza of shitty
         | contracting companies. It's takes filtering to get decent jobs.
        
         | Traubenfuchs wrote:
         | You are not missing anything but recruiter spam.
        
           | mmmmklllljgd wrote:
           | I get a torrent of recruiter spam in my InMail but I also got
           | my current job through InMail; the person that reached out to
           | me was a team technical lead at a company you've heard of
           | that I very much wanted to work for, and I took the bait, and
           | nearly doubled my pay in the process
           | 
           | And I've never posted or paid. I just have a profile, and
           | it's not even a very good one
           | 
           | So apparently there is some value
        
           | boredemployee wrote:
           | With positions that usually match at most 30% of our skills.
        
       | tedmcory77 wrote:
       | Facebook and Instagram are dying, so people are putting those
       | things there.
        
       | ThalesX wrote:
       | I find LinkedIN influencers funny for a long time, so I decided
       | to become one. In a sort of ironic way, I sometimes do posts on
       | LinkedIN where I just fluff a dumb story / idea and go with it
       | because I love all the reactions from people that probably don't
       | read it because it's obvious how dumb it is.
       | 
       | Last one was about moving all my company's servers to a
       | renewable-using co-located server facility that prides itself in
       | their personal connection to the underlying hardware and how
       | their approach is similar to how Belgian monks brew beer. Which
       | of course is true because I deployed something on my friend's NAS
       | and he loves brewing beer and taking care of his server. The move
       | has been commented as "Inspiring" by some HR.
       | 
       | Oh I also helped a friend deploy a super simple site on Vercel
       | NextJS so of course it had 99 Google Page Speed Rating so I wrote
       | this big ass post on how my company prides itself in delivering
       | high quality results to our customers. I posted graphs of our
       | almost 0 visitors, the google Page Speed and link to the super
       | shitty website. Almost no one clicked it though a lot of people
       | 'clapped'.
       | 
       | I honestly can't wait to go to an interview where someone asks me
       | about my posts.
        
         | melony wrote:
         | I have heard good things about this LinkedIn competitor:
         | 
         | https://www.shlinkedin.com
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | gadders wrote:
       | One of the many reasons to look forward to retirement is to be
       | able say what I really think on LinkedIn.
        
       | silisili wrote:
       | LinkedIn has always been a mess. It's a weird mix of absolute
       | narcissists who all spend time trying to make inspirational posts
       | and teaching forced life lessons, and people desperate for
       | attention seeking a bigger network than FB probably is for. After
       | all, adding some rando is probably taboo on FB, but more
       | acceptable on LinkedIn.
       | 
       | Talking about the posters, of course. Most people I know with
       | LinkedIn just use it as an online resume for recruiters, and that
       | actually works OK. Unsure why they added a social element at all,
       | to be honest.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | > Most people I know with LinkedIn just use it as an online
         | resume for recruiters, and that actually works OK.
         | 
         | Yeah, it seems there are two linkindins: one where you post
         | your resume, look up people you're about to meet with, message
         | friends whose email address you no longer have in the hope
         | they'll write back, get messages from recruiters, and that's
         | about it.
         | 
         | There's also this weird thing with posts and follows and such
         | but It's basically invisible. Not that LinkedIn doesn't try to
         | spam you with it, but back when there were cigarette and liquor
         | billboards I didn't really see them either. Brain just filtered
         | it out as visual spam.
         | 
         | So when I read articles like this I am fascinated. They are
         | like descriptions of a web site I've never visited. I wonder
         | who actually gets value from it.
        
         | trentnix wrote:
         | It's wall-to-wall virtue signaling. And no amount of "I don't
         | want to see this" seems to move the needle.
        
         | jfim wrote:
         | > Unsure why they added a social element at all, to be honest.
         | 
         | Ads.
        
           | jacob_rezi wrote:
           | retention of course
        
             | allenu wrote:
             | Social media is really great for the companies who own the
             | platforms. They just end up off-loading the work of
             | content-generation to the users, who also do the work of
             | attracting and retaining other users, all so that the
             | platform-owner can advertise to them or track their
             | behavior.
        
         | FartyMcFarter wrote:
         | > After all, adding some rando is probably taboo on FB, but
         | more acceptable on LinkedIn.
         | 
         | To me this makes LinkedIn pointless. The whole point, at least
         | in the beginning, was to create a network of people you've
         | worked with.
         | 
         | If you start adding random people it becomes like yet another
         | social network without any added benefit.
        
           | silisili wrote:
           | Well, maybe not completely random.
           | 
           | Recruiters are generally random and have no qualms about
           | adding people.
           | 
           | People also will add people at the company, even if they
           | don't work together, or even colleague of colleague type
           | connections are pretty standard. Doing so on FB I think would
           | be weird, especially across genders.
        
         | heretogetout wrote:
         | I've always treated LinkedIn as Facebook for people that want
         | to appear serious. Does it provide _any_ value?
        
           | RosanaAnaDana wrote:
           | It allows you to maintain a network of people you have
           | professional ties with.
        
         | foobiekr wrote:
         | The purpose of LinkedIn is small propaganda, same as Facebook
         | or Twitter. Any other use is mostly drowned out by the posters.
        
       | MrDresden wrote:
       | Only use Linkedin for resume discoverability. Couldn't care for
       | all the circle jerking that goes on in there.
        
       | whateveracct wrote:
       | I've got an ever-growing "LinkedCringe" screenshot album on my
       | phone. Always good for a mean laugh.
        
       | gnicholas wrote:
       | I hate when people post stories (often with pictures) about some
       | sad or amazing or whatever story, and they make it seem like it's
       | about them. These are always written in the first person, but if
       | you read all the way to the bottom it will say "credit:
       | somePerson", or something like that. Sometimes it's phrased to
       | make it seem like it's a photo credit, which is the worst.
       | 
       | These stories get all sorts of traction and comments because
       | people misunderstand that they're not the OP's story (and
       | honestly, many of them are probably complete fabrications.
       | 
       | I wish there were a way to report such comments to LinkedIn,
       | either as downright deceptive or specifically as a type of
       | 'stolen valor'. Is it reportable as misinformation? Maybe so. But
       | LinkedIn probably loves this stuff because it increases
       | engagement and makes people feel good when they use LinkedIn.
        
       | Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
       | I follow one of my 1990s Amiga coding heroes on LinkedIn, and he
       | said the same thing only a few days ago and it really hit me.
       | Let's keep it professional people!
       | 
       | No more of this nonsense about tangentially work related fluff to
       | get likes, it probably won't land you a job!
        
       | nathanaldensr wrote:
       | Was LinkedIn ever something worth talking about?
       | 
       | Agree? Thoughts? Comment for reach!
        
       | denvaar wrote:
       | Is there an alternative out there that has less of a social media
       | element?
        
         | jacob_rezi wrote:
         | We're building something that will be similar
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-25 23:01 UTC)