I don't have a LinkedIn account and don't really care about it. The one thing, however, that bothers me to no end is all the many, many times when a LinkedIn page comes up near the top of the results to a Google query, then I click on it, and chances are I don't get to the actual information, but to the LinkedIn log-in page.
Not that I think that this is LinkedIn's fault, but I assume Google's rationale is that "everybody has a LinkedIn account" so it's fine to include result pages that cannot be accessed without one.
I still remember the days when Google saw it as 'cloaking' when you showed different content to users and search engines. And to be honest, I'm annoyed they don't seem to do that anymore.
Like I get why they probably changed that. I suspect all the attacks from media outlets on Google for requiring their articles to be paywall free to rank in search likely had a big effect here.
But it should be simple. If you want to rank in Google, your pages should be visible to guests. If they're not, those pages don't rank at all.
The problem is really the unpredictability: some LinkedIn pages can apparently be accessed publicly without a login, others cannot. But perhaps that fact alone would be reason enough to block it entirely in Google searches?
You guys are playing it wrong. You don’t larpmax in general, you do it to hit specific targets.
The person who decides my promotions follows me on LinkedIn. I never really see her except at the Christmas party etc, so the only way to influence her directly is through getting in her feed. If she regularly sees how great I am, that establishes the thought in her mind, so when she is then asked to promote me by other people, she’ll think it’s a good idea.
Good on you for doing this and I hope you get promoted. But I can imagine a lot of people are like me and just don’t want to engage in office politics on or offline. Not that I don’t sometimes, but I’d much rather just work and be paid to do a job and live my life.
Tech Instagram is worse they just like looking at flashing colors on screen with no meaning. I once saw like this dude flexing about how complex his code is by showing like this obsidian ass diagram like dude what am I supposed to appreciate here? how coupled your code is?
People told me I was supposed to be on LinkedIn but I found it too silly a place to make an account. Then again, I was laid off from my job a while ago and I don’t really have a “network” irl nor online through which to find a new job, so maybe I am the sucker after all.
Finance LinkedIn is filled with slop posts about "Look at the trading terminal I built. Real math. Here's why it matters." and it's some clearly vibecoded pointless app. Comments are all "Insane project <name>!"
It is funny that they actually added a "Looks like AI Slop" button on the menu for each post.
Yes. I must use it within sandbox and single signon MFA and a password that questions my sanity to login. Even with this it regularly manages to sucks the soul dry occasionally.
Trolls posting absolute garbage /b/ are at least trying to evoke some feeling in you. Hard to say the same from the ‘I had dinner with my wife on a yacht. Here’s what it taught me about Series A VC relationships’ posting full of Claudisms and emojis.
Something like: "I have been looking for a QA middle role with 2 years of experience for six months. Here is the stuff I won't be doing: relocating to a different city, commuting more than 30 minutes, ...". Most of the comments say, "Good luck. You will definitely find a job". Only a few mention that it's time to update your worldview.
I often get notifications to play LinkedIn games, Zip or whatever. The games are very trivial and on a timer, where you end up on some kind of network leaderboard. I never play them party because they're boring, but also, I'm utterly scared that they use them as a intelligence signal in recruiting or selling it to 3rd party ATSs. There are so many companies hungry for arbitrary "smartness" indicators, this wouldn't even chock me.
Every time I convince myself to use LinkedIn because I keep getting told it’s where business opportunities are (not jobs, business connections), no matter how I try to be cringy, something deep inside keep preventing me and I feel like a fraud just by posting anything there. Don’t use it now and happy to lose these opportunities, until we get a better platform to replace it.
I know there's a lot of hate for LinkedIn here on HN but it really is the only place to see where ex-colleagues are working at and what competitors say they are up to. It's kind of like a boring version of TwitterX, but essential to those of us in normie jobs.
I wish there was an alternative but at least there's not much right wing propaganda and it does just work.
That's the reason I use LinkedIn, and I have zero complaints about it in that form. Tho for me is more about keeping the connection rather than see what they work on.
OTOH I do see the performative posting "I bumped my pinky toe on the cupboard and here's what it taught me about leading teams" and I genuinely don't understand who they're writing for. Isn't it obviously bullshit for everyone? Who cares about that?
I wish there was an alternative but at least there's not much right wing propaganda and it does just work.
Go on corposlop site centered around betraying your humanity by method acting as lobotomized drone slaves of global transnational capitalism. I lie and sign myself to lies! At least no "right wing propaganda" though.
I hate LinkedIn so much I made a slop cannon for it. I have Claude research a topic and post an extremely LLM slop post about BuSiNeSs twice a week, and of course everyone comments with slop comments and I reply in kind.
Ironically I think these are insightful. If you want to produce true slop, you need to dumb down your topic selection, or have Claude pick the topics. The stuff about the incompatible goals of "data strategy" I think is genuinely useful perspective, for example.
Claude does pick the topics! I worry I did too good a job steering it. I found a few of them insightful too, but it doesn't matter, what matters is that they're same old "They were doing a thing. It failed." Claude writing you see everywhere, intensifying the feeling that nobody on LinkedIn has a pulse.
On the bright side, if everyone is burning credits mining generic but helpful knowledge out of the LLM training data in bite-size packages, I don't need a subscription of my own!
It will be really fascinating to see what happens with the potential for LLM-generated output to become a dominant component of new training data.
It used to be the case that if you wanted a new job, you could strategically update your profile and over the next several days you would get bombarded by recruiter messages, some of which would actually be high-quality leads.
Not that I think that this is LinkedIn's fault, but I assume Google's rationale is that "everybody has a LinkedIn account" so it's fine to include result pages that cannot be accessed without one.
It is, they’re darkpatternmaxxing.
There used to be a time sites got punished if they treated searchbots differently..
Like I get why they probably changed that. I suspect all the attacks from media outlets on Google for requiring their articles to be paywall free to rank in search likely had a big effect here.
But it should be simple. If you want to rank in Google, your pages should be visible to guests. If they're not, those pages don't rank at all.
The answer is not to sign up to X, but to learn to suppress your FOMO. Chances are it was drivel anyway. Especially true for LinkedIn.
The person who decides my promotions follows me on LinkedIn. I never really see her except at the Christmas party etc, so the only way to influence her directly is through getting in her feed. If she regularly sees how great I am, that establishes the thought in her mind, so when she is then asked to promote me by other people, she’ll think it’s a good idea.
The mighty second brain of course. https://youtu.be/6NukGtwJb7Y?si=yg09jegXRM4C-hFE
You can absolutely find non-performative posts on Instagram. There is value in a sincere post - ex. sharing pictures of your cat to your friends.
Whereas in LinkedIn no such value exists in my experience - I can't imagine myself posting there for any other reason than to be performative.
So in terms of % of posts being performative I don't think anything tops LinkedIn.
Interestingly, unlike instagram the LinkedIn business model has nothing to do with it. It’s built around b2b sales and professional recruitment.
It is funny that they actually added a "Looks like AI Slop" button on the menu for each post.
Who’s the target audience for that?
Just scrolled now and saw like 5
Something like: "I have been looking for a QA middle role with 2 years of experience for six months. Here is the stuff I won't be doing: relocating to a different city, commuting more than 30 minutes, ...". Most of the comments say, "Good luck. You will definitely find a job". Only a few mention that it's time to update your worldview.
I wish there was an alternative but at least there's not much right wing propaganda and it does just work.
OTOH I do see the performative posting "I bumped my pinky toe on the cupboard and here's what it taught me about leading teams" and I genuinely don't understand who they're writing for. Isn't it obviously bullshit for everyone? Who cares about that?
I actually see posts from maybe 5-10% of my connections on LI, one strike for being boring or bland or performative and they're out of my feed.
Go on corposlop site centered around betraying your humanity by method acting as lobotomized drone slaves of global transnational capitalism. I lie and sign myself to lies! At least no "right wing propaganda" though.
I immortalised the posts here:
https://thinkpieces.stavros.io/
It will be really fascinating to see what happens with the potential for LLM-generated output to become a dominant component of new training data.