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Comment by 0db532a0 | Hacker News Reader

I recently deleted my LinkedIn account after growing sick of the irrelevant messages from recruiters and the mind-numbing, inane posts from the cult of self-proclaimed thinkers, influencers, TED luminaries and Elon Musk sympathisers. One of Oleg Vishnepolsky’s golden posts was the final straw.

I decided that I didn’t want to be a part of the bullshit and self aggrandisation any more. And why not, since I’d already deleted all of my other social media accounts long ago. I have the email or phone number of everyone I need to be in contact with. I had a chat about this with a friend who himself is a founder of a company and uses LinkedIn to keep track of developments inside his work network. It made me wonder whether I’d done the right thing.

Can anyone here who isn’t a recruiter or employer say that it’s worth having a LinkedIn profile?

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Actually, one of the reasons I still use LinkedIn is that their algo isn't that great.

It keeps throwing up the occasional article that I actually want to read, often because some random person I'm mysteriously connected to liked it.

If the algo gets "too good" I find it gets too samey.

Also there's some humour to be found when every other person is a "thought leader" but graduated less than 10 years ago. The self-puffery is kinda fun to watch. You can imagine how deflated the person would feel if you met them IRL and started asking proper questions.

I wish I could see the humour in it.

>You can imagine how deflated the person would feel if you met them IRL and started asking proper questions.

You could make anyone unhappy by "asking the proper questions," irrespective of what they have in their LinkedIn profile. Doing that is called "being mean."

Who pissed in your coffee today? Perhaps it's my bias living in NYC, but the average denizen here (myself included) finds someone asking proper, honest questions to be the absolute bare minimum to taking that person seriously, not to mention the absolute bare minimum to a whole host of basic human interactions and endeavors: working together, dating, making and sustaining friendships, making art, building a company.

Frankly, I find the almost passive aggressive lack of asking proper questions to be a little condescending and mean in and of itself. One of my favorite movies has several themes, but that's one of them. It's name, very interestingly enough, is Mean Girls.

Ironically, asking someone "where are you from?" is now considered a micro-aggression!

https://othersociologist.com/2017/07/15/where-are-you-from-r...

I must admit that I find the whole idea of micro-aggressions somewhat suspect, at least as currently posited, since it becomes an apparent necessity for me to second guess everything that anyone says to me for ulterior or questionable motives. As an introvert this degree of "extrospection" sounds utterly exhausting.

It's much like that "cultural appropriation" absurdity.

As an Italian living in London, with very light skin and blue eyes, I still get this question asked often enough - just because of my accent. Mostly, it's a way to start a conversation. Personally, I also ask the same questions to most English-sounding and looking people - to learn if they're from London or from somewhere else.

About the one difference between people who live in NYC and people who live elsewhere is that the former always prefix their questions with "As someone who lives in NYC,". They're sort of like college mothers, members of the armed forces attending university, or vegans.

I'm somewhat of the opinion that the people you're talking about will have considered answers to the so-called proper questions you have. It may be that they need to think to answer some.

Constructing some fictional individual who's bullshitting on LinkedIn and then tearing them down is top-shelf insecure behaviour.

Actually, whether <asking proper questions> is "mean" or good depends on the competence of the person of whom the questions are asked.

For a competent person, a few proper questions present an opportunity to better explain their proposition, thesis, or thinking, and an opening to a potentially great conversation.

For an incompetent answerer, a few proper questions merely reveal the shallowness of their thesis and thinking. if they're smart, it'll be an indication that they should go back to the drawing board. If not, it'll just be an embarrassment, but informative to the questioner (as in, this person's ideas aren't worth more time).

If your only goal is maintaining superficial social connections, then proper questions should be left out (and there are times where this is indeed the goal and so appropriate). If the goals are more broad, then ask away...

There is definitely value to LinkedIn, for all the obvious reasons. It let's you keep up to date with new jobs, and old colleagues.

But you probably already decided that it's not valuable enough to keep you on the platform. Only thing I can add if you ever start your own company it's becomes over an order or magnitude more valuable.

Yes that’s what I’m worried about. Too late now, I suppose.

~20% of my shop's jobs came from LinkedIn 2018. All those jobs landed by me surfing on the couch watching Netflix (senior dev in Sweden).

But I use it as hunting grounds. Can't stand how people portray themselves on LinkedIn - so much bullshit going on.

I just used it for exactly that purpose today. It's the modern successor to the Rolodex.

It's a great barometer. From the people in my feed getting jobs as CISOs I know for example that CISO is one of these bullshit jobs.

Well, I personally like it to just satisfy my curiosity about what are some of my friends and coworkers up to. Generally, I am quite curious about what is my friend/coworker/ex-coworker/... doing, and I am genuinely happy when someone I know gets promoted, or gets a new job.

I mean this in the most genuine way. What is a "Elon Musk sympathiser"?

A buddy of mine at got a gig with a 30 percent raise in another state with it. I got off it years ago along with all other social media because I find it intrusive.

I’d delete my account if I could remember the password. The emails are sent straight to the junk folder.

Password recovery, set new password, promptly delete account.

The most inane are from the emotional intelligence author, like blatantly obvious nonsense.

LinkedIn is one of the worst data sellers out there. No reason to keep it if you care about privacy

I'm pondering deleting my account, and that's the kind of thing that would push me over the fence. Do you know any good links about this?

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