Let’s Face It, LinkedIn Might Be the Best Social Network

> The fact that many people bring their best selves to this social network —make LinkedIn worthy of more of your time.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I always saw LinkedIn as a digital stage where half of the participants knew it was about putting on a performance and the other half had no idea this was going on. The author seems to be in the latter half.

LinkedIn requires proof of identity.

Not actual hard documentation, but implicitly you must represent yourself as the person you are to reap any networking benefits on offer. My point is that you are held to the standard of only saying things that you would be happy to say at work or in public.

The problem is that this creates inverted echo chambers compared to those on Reddit and Twitter - full of vanity CEOs and recruiters gushing over how much value you have as a human being that they've never met and reposting the job market version of forwards from Grandma.

Ultimately, my biggest problem is that I would never say there what I'm saying here because I'd be chastised for it by my colleagues and related communities, and so it will always breed a lack of honesty and integrity that will overshadow most practical discussions and posts.

Let's face it, it's not.

LinkedIn had promise but has become awful. Everything there is either marketing, influencers, or recruiters.

LinkedIn - the social network for people who have dust where their souls should be.

I guess I really just see LinkedIn as more of a slightly interactive resume. I don't use it at all to keep up with people.

Not for long, sorry. As it expands and attempts to bring more people in, it starts diluting whatever good there was.

It slowly turns into „I usually don’t do it but here’s my linkedin facebook post”. Cutesy cats, dogs, kiddos and all that kind of stuff.

The other half is simply adverts and promoted content. It is slowly becoming meh.

Every one of the increasingly rare cases in which I find myself perusing LinkedIn, I feel a little bit dirty afterwards.

I rarely use LinkedIn but just about every time I do I'm using it find a new job. As far as value for time spent it's definitely orders of magnitude more effective than any other social network.

It has too many "thought leaders" though, I don't find relationships in LinkedIn genuine at all.

Obligatory old post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30215033

This is EXACTLY the opinion I’d expect WSJ to have!