Stop Using LinkedIn

http://www.stopusinglinkedin.com

by ruperp • 11 years ago

534 227 11 years ago

hamitron• 11 years ago

I am actually working on an alternative that would basically just be a resume API. This is nothing but good news for me.

boomzilla• 11 years ago

How would you validate the resumes? The power of LinkedIn is in the trust it establishes. Granted I still have a lot of validation to do before hiring/doing business with someone, but Linkedin is a great first filter. I know for software engineers, Github could be a better filter, but it's just a very small segment in the world of business.

dkarapetyan9• 11 years ago

Validate the resume? What does that mean?

sergiotapia• 11 years ago

"The power of LinkedIn is in the trust it establishes."

I feel the complete opposite way. I've had people claim I know PHP on my profile when I've never used PHP in my life. That's endorse stuff is major baloney. How can you trust that when anybody can just click Endorse for whatever they want?

pimlottc• 11 years ago

I know for software engineers, Github could be a better filter

For some engineers. There are many, many excellent developers who don't spend much time on Github. John Carmack doesn't even have an account, for example...

edoceo• 11 years ago

I've built a small tool to aggregate profiles together and I use it for my hiring. It builds a profile that is a bit more useful than LI. http://ars.io

gpi5• 11 years ago

One of LinkedIn strength is related to accessing your network though. Being able to have a sense of who does what and when is the only reason why I'm sill on their site. Any plan to have something similar?

feverishaaron• 11 years ago

This reads like an Anonymous diatribe. Clear language will yield better results.

JoeAltmaier2• 11 years ago

RIght. I went away with no frickin idea what they were talking about.

So, no I don't care either. LinkedIn is THE way to connect professionally. Some API rant is not going to change that.

Smushman• 11 years ago

Could anyone break down for those of us who are engineers what it is that we should be concerned with about this?

justrudd2• 11 years ago

Yeah. The site had no information on it.

But I wonder, is LinkedIn really "the" way to connect professionally? My personal bit of anecdotal experience is that it isn't for me. I was on LinkedIn for maybe 15 years? I accepted everyone on LinkedIn (I was not discriminating at all). And in that 15 years, I never found one job through it. Right now in Seattle (where I've been for 10 years), I go through my "people I drink beer with" network.

What I'd love to see is a network that would introduce me to people in other cities. I want to move to NYC, but I know no one there. So I don't know the good vs. bad neighborhoods, companies to stay away from (you know there is a list), etc.

51Cards• 11 years ago

Agreed... sounds like a manifesto. Immediately undermined me taking their initiative seriously.

ruperp4• 11 years ago

It's a play on the famous "Infamy Speech" by FDR. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamy_Speech

jmiwhite• 11 years ago

That was clear enough, and it was kind of sad; this is for many users a non-issue, so parodying the response to a surprise act of war seems a bit grandiose.

As a user, I'm not terribly concerned about whether you (et al.) can build an application against some other site more easily, and your argument

only works if that platform is open and your data portable

is undermined by your own link to their article on exporting data. ("Full name, email address, current employer, and position are exported") Can you help me understand why this is such a problem?

dlu2• 11 years ago

Articulate your anger more clearly. And if you're making a historical reference, make sure people get the gist of it even if they don't get the reference

junto• 11 years ago

What actually happened of the 12th?

ipedrazas• 11 years ago

I think it's when they put the web site up...

foolinaround• 11 years ago

Was there a change in terms that is unsavoury?

sagivo2• 11 years ago

linkedin: "someone just viewed your profile." me: "who?" linkedin: "can't tell you."

darkstar999• 11 years ago

"pay me and I'll tell you"

xienze• 11 years ago

I actually found that even if you pay there's STILL a lot of "people who've viewed you" that you can't actually view!

michael_h• 11 years ago

linkedin workflow:

  * get connection request
  * reset password
  * log in
  * accept connection
  * log out
  * do not think about linkedin again until the next connection request.

bovermyer• 11 years ago

Wow, this is... yeah, this is pretty much how I use LinkedIn too.

I'm going to go see what's involved in deleting my LinkedIn profile, I think. Github should be my resume anyway.

_lce0• 11 years ago

mine:

  * get connection request
  * open mobile browser
  * switch to "request desktop page" mode
  * log in
  * accept connection
  * log out
  * do not think about linkedin again until the next connection request.

can't understand why do they block the browser from using the remembered password on mobile!

balakk• 11 years ago

I'm even more paranoid -

- Get connection request

- Open private tab in firefox

- Temporarily disable noscript blocks for linked-in domains

- Accept the connection

- Close tab, re-enable script blocks

They are way too creepy.

rza• 11 years ago

The default setting is that when you view someone's profile, it tells them who you are. I turned this off, as I would love to be able to browse without notifying every profile I go to.

elliotec• 11 years ago

None of those alternatives are anything like LinkedIn, and this page doesn't tell me what they did that was so evil anyway.

gagege• 11 years ago

"Yeah, sure I'll just switch from LinkedIn to GitHub..."

What?

girmad• 11 years ago

To make this work, you need to get the avg LinkedIn user to opt out. I bet this page is not very effective at achieving that right now.

To get the average user to change their behavior, you must show them:

- why doing nothing will be bad for them (try to show how it will impact their daily life)

- why doing what you recommend will be good for them

  + without putting in much effort or money

  + very quickly

There are lot of angry people on the internet, the challenge is to make me care.

yafujifide• 11 years ago

Twitter should be on the list of alternatives. I have found twitter to be a more valuable professional tool than LinkedIn (though I doubt my experience is like others).

hapless• 11 years ago

LinkedIn, like Twitter, is limiting API usage to specific use cases that dovetail with LinkedIn's own apps, instead of competing with them. The restrictions were imposed yesterday. The authors of this manifesto think that's a bad thing, but they don't give me, the reader, any more information.

Why is it a bad thing?

What cool stuff am I missing by using LinkedIn and its restrictive API?

Why should I put effort into an alternative?

arcatek• 11 years ago

I wonder if it has to do with the MASSIVE amount of head hunter spam that we may get from LinkedIn. Maybe they actually restrict its access for the Greater Good?

maineldc• 11 years ago

That spam IS the LinkedIn business model and it's not coming from 3rd party apps that have access to the API - it's coming from LinkedIn's main site and the (premium) features they offer.

josefdlange• 11 years ago

This.

Making potentially baseless claims and not explaining their impact beyond "they're bad!" is the kind of rhetoric a middle schooler uses before he or she learns to write proper persuasive prose.

While I agree that data should be as freely available as possible--so long as the person to whom the data belongs approves--I really can't get on board with this histrionic garbage.

Make an assertion. Back it up with evidence. Explain the consequences.

ruperp4• 11 years ago

We tweaked the copy a bit. Would love your suggestions on something better. Thanks for the constructive feedback!

jasonlotito• 11 years ago

I think the other question is: Will all of the alternatives presented guarantee they won't pull the same stunt? Is there legalese to this affect? Or are the suggestions basically "use these guys and hope they don't do the same thing" in which case, you are in the same boat as before.

slasaus• 11 years ago

I'm afraid this is the Silicon Valley way of doing business. I believe it's what you get when dealing with VCs. Read more about that here: https://aralbalkan.com/notes/the-camera-panopticon/

mathattack• 11 years ago

I've dealt with vendors in other situations who felt they had a right to free and open access to the Mother Ship, even when they were competing with it. You can't get around that mindset. The only reason to be angry is when the Mothership makes explicit promises that it backs away from. And given how many platforms bring things in to control the user experience (even AirBnB is taking more ownership of the total experience) this shouldn't come as a surprise to the small players.

jakejake2• 11 years ago

I actually couldn't tell if it was intended to be a joke, a trolling, or perhaps the rantings of a lunatic. Putting in stuff like "federated bodies of the internet" and the "empire of LinkedIn" makes it seem like it's supposed to be a gag.

If this site is supposed to be serious, they should perhaps remove the superfluous text and add some actual information about what LinkedIn is doing (aside from just linking to the image of the terms of service notification).

--EDIT-- I see that this is a re-wording of FDR's infamy speech which explains the text. I still can't tell if it's a joke or not though.

jwiley• 11 years ago

It would be helpful to have real-world examples of who is losing out due to this and why...beyond the entire free peoples of the internet (some of whom I'm sure do not use linked in).

nostromo2• 11 years ago

This article is more informative about why they are upset with LinkedIn:

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/linkedin-api/

tl;dr: LinkedIn is pulling a Twitter.

I can't say I'm surprised. It's a common pattern: Step 1: plant a nice open garden that attracts lots of people. Step 2: put wall around garden.

robbd7• 11 years ago

That's how I would play Roller Coaster Tycoon

johnchristopher• 11 years ago

Thanks for the tldr; but what does `pulling a Twitter` mean ?

slig• 11 years ago

Closing down APIs once they're big enough to not care more about developers and early adopters.

_Adam• 11 years ago

Hmm. Interesting if this decision was ultimately responsible for Twitter's declining traffic. Perhaps the same will happen to Linkedin? Of course even if it does we won't have evidence of causation, but it's something to keep in the back of our minds.

logn2• 11 years ago

Step 3: stop watering the grass. Step 4: hope the walls are high enough.

dikaiosune• 11 years ago

Netflix did this recently too, IIRC.

friendlyguy85• 11 years ago

Stop using Linkedin Here is a list of 16 sites where you need to be registered at teh same time to have an access to the same audience as on linkedin

WalterSear• 11 years ago

All alternatives miss the main reason that people use linked in, which is it's social graph.

Casseres• 11 years ago

Develop a better service for the end-user, and I'll use it. Once enough people are using it, then I'll stop using LinkedIn.

And more details with a clear explanation of why the website wants us to stop using LinkedIn would be appreciative.

Sivart13• 11 years ago

So I should stop using LinkedIn because they're restricting the amount of access that third parties have to my data?

As I see it, the only thing worse than LinkedIn spamming me based on my employment history is other companies spamming me based on my LinkedIn employment history.

There's many reasons to stop using LinkedIn, but this doesn't seem like one.

shravvmehtaa• 11 years ago

Linkedin has been known to shut down competing services prior to this. At hired.com, our API access was revoked (a long while ago), and many of our users were no longer able to login.

jspiral• 11 years ago

you guys rejected me as a customer even though my team is building data science stuff on open source technologies, because my employer does translation which is "a competing staffing service".

vivekpreddy• 11 years ago

Likewise with us. Hypocritical to claim that Linkedin takes anti-competitive practices when Hired.com employs similar tactics. At least Linkedin still allows competitors to have Linkedin profiles.

btipling• 11 years ago

API issues aside, I recently deleted my LinkedIn account and my life has been better off for it. My recruiter spam volume dropped from daily emails to maybe two or three times a month. I'm not sure if LinkedIn provides any value, I've never gotten a job that way.

I think stalking people on social networks is also a net negative experience. I realized I should spend less time worrying about what other people are doing with their lives and focus more on my own.

There was also a recent NY Times article about how employers use LinkedIn candidates contacts to disqualify them for employment[1]. So LinkedIn can actually be detrimental to your career.

I just don't think LinkedIn adds anything. Businesses and recruiters use it to get your email to target you for spam. But what do you get out of it and think, if there wasn't a LinkedIn would you be out of a job right now?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/technology/on-linkedin-a-r...

FD3SA• 11 years ago

Agreed with all of your points, but I'd like to add that your employment history is very personal and can quite often be used against you in ways you wouldn't imagine ahead of time.

Just like any personal information, its best to keep it as private as possible and default to a "need to know" basis. The era of naively optimistic voluntary sharing of sensitive personal information ended when we saw the potential consequences.

Potential employers want to know where you worked? They can ask you themselves. I'd also like to know who the board members are playing golf with, what their future capitalization plans are and if/when they plan on jumping ship. Too bad none of that will ever be shared with me. So why should I share intimate details of my past?

Information asymmetry is power in the modern world. It is foolish to relinquish it voluntarily.

jsprogrammer• 11 years ago

Information asymmetry is power in the modern world.

And likely favors those who place lots valid information into the world, not those who keep it secret.

hughguiney• 11 years ago

As someone who is looking for work and finds nearly all of it through LinkedIn, canceling my account is not something I can afford to do at this time. As much as I empathize with the Open Web mission, opting out of LI is the privilege of happily employed developers.

rjdagost• 11 years ago

Yet another demonstration of the hazards of building a business on a platform that's entirely controlled by someone else.

abdelhai• 11 years ago

Sorry for my shameless plug here but we are developing a LinkedIn alternative for Developer, it's called devolio.net[1] and we will launch open beta in March. We will support the open jsonresume.org formats and unrestricted profile viewing experience (no sign in walls) . Plus we are just focusing on developers, so it has no annoying fake business people.

[1] https://devolio.net/

dkarapetyan9• 11 years ago

Dear programmers, if you are using linkedin you are doing it wrong. Use github, careers.stackoverflow, a plain html resume page, the ladders, and basically anything else that is not linkedin to showcase your skillset.

mindcrime3• 11 years ago

LinkedIn is useful for more than just "showcasing your skillset" though.

dkarapetyan9• 11 years ago

How is that? The only thing I've ever gotten from them is a shitty user experience, overabundance of dark UI patterns, and recruiter spam.

kevin_thibedeau• 11 years ago

"The Ladders"? I've never seen a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

dkarapetyan9• 11 years ago

As opposed to linkedin?

benburton• 11 years ago

TheLadders is just a worse LinkedIn you have to pay for up front.

dlu2• 11 years ago

Is anyone really surprised? Ideologically upset? Sure, but we learned this with Twitter and tons of other companies. The APIs are there's to support or pull

halayli• 11 years ago

Looking at the alternatives listed, it's clear that they have no competitor.

eggbrain• 11 years ago

I think one of the most frustrating things is hearing how many people seem to dislike LinkedIn, but use it because it's the best thing out there. Most only use it as their online resume, but between recruiter spam messages and constant annoyances from emails and to "keep up to date", they tolerate it at best.

Facebook had similar rumblings (people saying they'd switch off as soon as possible if something better came along), but Google Plus showed us the social costs of switching was higher than the frustration most people felt.

Does LinkedIn have that same social cost of switching to another service? I'm not so sure -- and I think it means they might be more susceptible to falling flat on their face if they push users too far.[1]

[1] This may just be my own hope and bias, since I built a job website of my own.

juancastro• 11 years ago

Well... I never thought about this before...

jchomali• 11 years ago

Me either

swalsh• 11 years ago

The problem with a lot of these sites (facebook/linkedin) etc is their business is built on data you provided, which they then get to control.

The problem is additional data gets built up, and they gain a monopoly on the information. It results in an unfair market. For me to build a competitor to facebook or linkedin would be very difficult. Even if its better!

I'd like to see a law about user obtained data, that requires it always be programatically accessible.

logn2• 11 years ago

It's called fair use but people have this idea that Robots.txt was a bill passed by Congress. But yes, I totally agree, and sites like Stack Overflow are doing this very well. It's a shame that Archive.org was not allowed to crawl my profile before I left last year but that they allowed Google/Bing/etc to crawl it.

pearjuice• 11 years ago

In theory all this stop using X campaigns sound amazing as in this era value and revenue of X is often determined by its active users. Vote with your wallet! Practically, only a subset of all active users will actually care and permanently stop using X until the situation has improved. In the end, cost of living without X is often bigger than the association you feel with the campaign its values. If there were solid alternatives straight away and everyone would switch, that cost would decrease but until then "stop using linkedin", " drop dropbox", "don't buy Nike" are just drops in the ocean.

Which is a bummer because if you would be able to actually manoeuvre a big enough user base, those campaigns would certainly be effective due to the "adapt or run out of business" effect it has.

MagicWishMonkey3• 11 years ago

LinkedIn screwed me over real good a few weeks back.

They sent me an email saying "There are 108 people you might want to connect with", so I click on view all and it shows a giant list of people with checkmarks by their names. Nice. I uncheck all of them, and scroll through checking a few folks who I want to network with (5 people in total). Click next, it takes me to a screen showing the 5 people and the banner clearly says "Send connection requests to these 5 people?". I click next.

The next screen says "Congratulations, we've sent connection requests to 300 people.". What the flying fuck? Ok, well that's a bummer but oh well, probably just a bug in their system. Then my inbox starts getting spammed with "I'm out of the office right now blah blah blah" from people who I don't even know who they are.

The assholes sent 300 people linkedin connection requests through my own personal gmail account. With zero warning whatsoever. That really pisses me off.

I like LinkedIn, it's a great networking tool, but they really need to stop doing this shit. Something similar happened a few years ago, but they only spammed people in my address book who were already members and the emails were sent by LinkedIn, not through my gmail account.

I've revoked LinkedIn's access to my gmail account. I regret ever enabling it in the first place. I recommend you do the same.

For those who don't know how: https://www.google.com/settings/security (click the view all button next to Apps and Websites).

basseq4• 11 years ago

I don't think I ever granted them access, but somehow they got a list of random email contacts. So every once in a while I'll get an email that says, "Connect with Joe?" Looks like a normal inbound connection request, but it's actually a trap to get YOU to initiate a request. Awkward for contacts you might accept a request from, but not reach out to.

karamazov• 11 years ago

I suspect the other party gave LinkedIn their address book, and they're trying to maximize the odds of a connection.

cstejerean• 11 years ago

Are you using an Android phone? I noticed this too with LinkedIn and it happened immediately after installing LinkedIn on Android. Never happened in previous years while using iOS.

jrochkind13• 11 years ago

Many, many, people have been burned by this same thing.

I think we need more advertisement of this terrible practice -- and or try to get google to aggressively block their access to do this sort of thing from your gmail, as what it is -- essentially a phishing/malware attack.

lelf• 11 years ago

revoked LinkedIn's access to my gmail account

I honestly don't know what people are thinking while enabling that.

No, Seriously?

hashmymustache• 11 years ago

I don't understand how Gmail allows it. I assume they've gotten enough complaints about it being abused to prohibit or strictly limit access with at least warnings before actions can be taken.

krick• 11 years ago

Until now I didn't even actually think such people exist. Especially on HN.

tbrownaw• 11 years ago

Why the holy flying fuck would anyone give someone they met on the Internet the ability to impersonate them? That's like online safety 101, right after not giving out your home address and vacation schedule.

Especially when that someone already has a bad reputation like linkedin has.

MagicWishMonkey3• 11 years ago

I had no idea that I granted them permission to send email through my account, I thought I had restricted them to the address book. I made a mistake.

basseq4• 11 years ago

This is my problem with social-network-based SSO solutions. Why would I sign into your service with Twitter when you request the right to post on my behalf? (I've been burned by that. Never again.)

afandian• 11 years ago

I completely agree. It still happened to me. Like lots of other people here, I don't quite know how.

I sent a message to support saying "I never gave you permission to do this" and they took the time to reply and say "yes you did".

monochromatic• 11 years ago

The assholes sent 300 people linkedin connection requests through my own personal gmail account. With zero warning whatsoever.

The fact that they requested access to your email account should have been warning enough.

rnovak• 11 years ago

I can't understand why anyone would give any entity access to their email, it's really baffling.

I personally see LinkedIn as horrible, and deleted my account long ago. They don't let you restrict who can view your profile, and they allow people to remain anonymous. For anyone who cares about Privacy, this should be a huge no-no.

betenoire• 11 years ago

This type of wisdom only comes with being burnt and cynical. We shouldn't require that of our users.

jackmaney• 11 years ago

Yeah, I'm always weary of allowing any app to send emails on my behalf, unless it's something I've put together myself (eg email alerts for internal stuff breaking, etc).

TylerJay• 11 years ago

Isn't it more likely that they just sent the emails themselves but used his email as the "Reply To" address? A lot of software systems (SalesForce, Hubspot, etc.) do that too.

ploxiln• 11 years ago

I never let them have my email credentials (address, ok, linked account or credentials, no).

But, the thing they do that really bothers me, is to ask people endorse me for things, in a way that suggests I asked to be endorsed for those things. But I didn't. It just found words related to those in my profile. And people who like me or want to be helpful click OK to endorse me for shit that I have nothing to do with. Like ASP.net.

I just don't like that it makes people think I asked to be endorsed. For stuff I don't know and don't do.

pasbesoin• 11 years ago

GIGO. Which makes me think that the actual functionality/utility in LinkedIn (of which I am not a member) lies elsewhere.

Years ago, recruiting advice was insisting that a LinkedIn profile had become necessary. But even back then, the configuration / data sharing they insisted upon, and worse, the reporting on some of their bad (from my perspective, and also others') behaviour was just too much for me, and I stayed away.

I imagine much of what one gets through LinkedIn is akin to much of what one gets in the rest of the corporate world. A lot of BS, and you left at your own discretion to discern the truth -- such as it is and is reflected in that environment -- amidst all this.

P.S. I'll add that LinkedIn seems to have become a poster child -- albeit a lame-assed corporate one -- for "dark patterns".

b1twise• 11 years ago

Plaxo!

kazinator2• 11 years ago

Not all entries in your address book are "people" either. Are any of them mailing lists? (Like open source projects or whatnot?) They will get this spam also.

austinz• 11 years ago

I heartily recommend everyone with a Google account follow that link and double-check your security and allowed app settings. (Also take some time to go through your app-specific passwords and revoke any that aren't relevant anymore.)

In addition to being good practice in and of itself, Google is currently doing a promotion where they'll increase your Google Drive space by 2 GB if you go through their security checklist (see link below):

http://googledrive.blogspot.com/2015/02/safer-internet-day-2...

mikro2nd• 11 years ago

But if you refuse to give them your phone no. - for much the same reasons you should be hesitant about giving LinkedIn your email address - then it is impossible to complete the check. No 2GB for me, then!

ddxv• 11 years ago

Thank you. I posted that on LinkedIn to spread the word.

byset• 11 years ago

I feel victim to this a while back and documented it here: http://marknugent.tumblr.com/post/98203319356/linkedins-evil...

stonogo• 11 years ago

Can anyone use the phrase "undersigned and federated bodies of the internet" and expect to be taken seriously?

theaccordance2• 11 years ago

Guessing that someone isn't happy that their lead generation app just lost its data input?

This website is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction that tries to rally readers by crafting a context that makes it sound as if LinkedIn's changes are not in the interest of the user.

Yes, I would like open access to the API, but I'd gladly trade that if it helps reduce the volume of spam sales/recruitment inquiries I receive.

The partnership integration route may have extra hoops to jump through, but it doesn't concern someone like myself who's anticipating LinkedIn integration with our product; our intent is not what LinkedIn is trying to curb.

ruperp4• 11 years ago

Better integration doesn't mean spam (LinkedIn already has that feature in spades). It means allowing apps to leverage your work connections to provide better tools for you to use.

theaccordance2• 11 years ago

Not sure where you're going with that, have you read the official post from LinkedIn or the Wired Article? That will help give better context to my comment.

ruperp4• 11 years ago

OP here. So the FDR verbage is not popular.

Anyone willing to help write better text? Please email contact@stopusinglinkedin.com and we'll get it swapped out.

Apologies for the intro copy faux pas.

thesomelioma• 11 years ago

I'd feel better about helping you if I knew who you were. For all I know, you represent a shady company who tried to make bank by scraping LinkedIn data and creating customized phishing profiles.

codingdave• 11 years ago

I know Linkedin isn't perfect, but it does have one single use case fulfilled for me - the ability to have just enough of a connection to ex-coworkers, so that in the future if our paths ever do have reason to cross again, it is easy to make that happen.

These aren't people I want to be on other social media with - they are purely coworkers who might be worth contacting again. And there are other ways to keep in touch... but for this particular use, Linkedin is a good option.

And because that is my primary purpose for having an account, I have no problems with API usage that is more restricted. I don't want an ecosystem built up around linkedin's data. I don't see any potential for that to improve my life.

TheHypnotist• 11 years ago

They also recently put in some search restrictions, which for a very different set of reasons, makes me not like what they are doing.

op00to• 11 years ago

One of the "alternative" services these folks recommend is academia.edu - does anyone else find it really weird that a for-profit-not-even-remotely-degree-granting company is squatting in the .edu namespace?

obsurveyor• 11 years ago

It was assigned before 2001 so it's grandfathered in and isn't subject to the normal .edu rules.

jrochkind13• 11 years ago

I hate LinkedIn, and wish it was not a de facto requirement for getting a job in certain industries/areas.

To make it not so, _users_ need to stop using Linked In.

This OP is very developer-focused in it's audience, it will not be clear to the non-developer user (or even to many developers) what they are talking about at all, or why it matters. It is written assuming you already know what they're talking about and already agree with them about it.

There are plenty of things that might matter to users and help convince users that Linked In is an untrustworthy company -- like, their email spamming/address-book-stealing practices. I was hoping the OP would be more user-focused in it's intended audience and more intentional in making a case.

jacquesc• 11 years ago

Developers are a huge resource for LinkedIn. The only reason they can sell their spammy products to recruiters is because those recruiters count on LinkedIn having quality people on their network to send it to.

If everyone who didn't need a LinkedIn profile to get a job shut off their profile, LinkedIn's revenue would collapse quickly.

jrochkind13• 11 years ago

If everyone who didn't need a LinkedIn profile to get a job shut off their profile...

Right. And clearly someone that actually _needs_ a LinkedIn profile to get a job is not going to shut off their profile, which is the hard part.

But either way, I think this OP is not written/structured as well as it could be to convince people to shut off their profiles and/or stop recruiting on it, it seems to be targetted more at people who write software for linked in API, and doens't do a great job of making the argument even there.

wazoox• 11 years ago

Linkedin provides me with a constant stream of useful contacts, leads, etc. Linkedin is by far the most useful social network to me.

pknerd• 11 years ago

So did someone share it on LinkedIn yet?

getdavidhiggins• 11 years ago

If your digital life is portable from the outset, then smear-campaign sites like this don't need to happen. LinkedIN data silos are purely symptomatic of people choosing services where the data is not portable in the first place.

Choose services where you can export, and migrate data before the fact, not after it.

Also see

* http://indiewebify.me/

* http://dataportability.org/

Checkout the #ownyourdata initiative also.

Djonckheere• 11 years ago

Among the alternatives listed is Behance -last time I checked this network was owned and operated by Adobe. btw, the stopusinglinkedin.com site links to behance.com which does not exist. It's behance.net

Dribbble (the other design resource listed) I understand was co-founded by designer Dan Cederholm, but oddly if you visit his current Wikipedia page there's no mention of his involvement with Dribbble -only on his SimpleBits bio page: http://simplebits.com/about/

PaulHoule• 11 years ago

My beef with LinkedIn is that the user interface sux.

I used to be a LION so I still have days when I have to filter 20 connection requests. I still accept connections if (1) you seem to be a person and (2) you use your real name (not the name of a business)

The interface for accepting connection requests is painful and slow and so are the interfaces for doing other things on LinkedIn. I find myself using it less and less because it just takes too long to do things.

By restricting the API they just make it harder to improve the UI.

pbreit• 11 years ago

LinkedIn's APIs have historically been very restrictive. I can sort of understand that LinkedIn feels/knows it's sitting on extremely valuable data except that on further inspection it's almost all public data that just happens to be decently organized.

ksenzee• 11 years ago

I wish there were some way to tell companies like LinkedIn not to create a shadow profile on you. I've never trusted LinkedIn enough to create an account - their email practices are too shady, and I'm totally happy with StackOverflow Careers - but I periodically get emails saying "Bill Former Coworker wants to connect with you!" (And then of course I get follow-up emails for several weeks.) I'm sure my shadow profile is quite accurate. For all I know, they're emailing people on my behalf saying "ksenzee wants to connect with you!"

shiggerino2• 11 years ago

LinkedIn creeps me the hell out with their connection suggestions, that are way too accurate for for anyone to make through honest means, especially given that I've intentionally been very restrictive with what I've added to my profile. I've even been very uneasy about accepting connection requests, since this isn't something I really want to contribute to.

Of course, that means the cost of deleting my account is very low given that I hardly use it in the first place. Something to think about.

lyschoening• 11 years ago

If you supplied your email, you have given LinkedIn everything needed for honest, accurate suggestions. They used the suggested contacts' address books.

smu3l• 11 years ago

Yes I'm always surprised by who shows up as suggested contacts. Often it's people who I've interacted with online maybe once. My best guess is that those people are providing LinkedIn their contact lists.

walterbell• 11 years ago

I wonder how many are Android users. iOS gives users the option of preventing apps from accessing contact data.

vitd• 11 years ago

I have a problem where I lived in a building with a bunch of people who turned out to be fairly dishonest. We all have each others email addresses because we had to communicate about the home-owners' association. I moved out, and now LinkedIn regularly suggests that I connect with these douchebags because I'm still in their address books.

a3n2• 11 years ago

LinkedIn once suggested I connect with a neighbor in my apartment building. All we ever did was say hi to each other, we didn't know each other's names. The only reason I knew the connection suggestion was about this person was because of the photo. That was a WTF moment.

shiggerino2• 11 years ago

I'm guessing if they don't get enough hits by matching email addresses and address books they go one level deeper in the graph. That would explain some of mine.

alfg• 11 years ago

I feel like LinkedIn is an evil necessity. It's so bloated and I never feel comfortable navigating or viewing anything on LinkedIn due to their nature of trying to connect or send emails without your approval.

I'd really like if there was an alternative that can be just as popular, with simple resume hosting/networking capabilities. No bloat or shady practices.

jqm• 11 years ago

My opinion is that being on LinkedIn is like being on the shelf at WalMart (where the masses can easily find you).

Most unique quality merchandise won't ever found on the shelves of a WalMart. That's a place for interchangeable, disposable, mass produced items.

Oh, and Fuck companies that engage in scummy behaviour like email hijacking.

aendruk• 11 years ago

I created this page to help when filling out forms that presume I have a LinkedIn profile:

https://Opt.outof.Link/edIn

ndesaulniers2• 11 years ago

Something is really fucked with their UI. It's very deceptive and deceitful. The other day, I thought I was accepting connection requests people had sent me. Found out that I was sending connection requests to people LinkedIn thought I knew! I can see how that could be considered useful, but it was not my intent to contribute to the noise and the spam that is LinkedIn.

suttree• 11 years ago

It's looking very likely that 2015 is going to be a #linkedout year. More and more stuff like this is happening, and LinkedIn can't keep up.

They're an incredible company, but they're a 12 year old product at this stage.

Take a look at my version of the alternative, trying to get ahead of them not replace them:

https://www.somewhere.com

LukeB_UK• 11 years ago

I deleted my LinkedIn account a while ago. Their UI is full of dark patterns and the only thing I ever got out of their service was recruitment spam from people that hadn't actually read my profile.

Since deleting my account, I get much less spam from recruiters. If I still get some, it's easy to get rid of them with a simple reply or a click on an unsubscribe link.

rilita• 11 years ago

LinkedIn, as used by the majority of resources ( not recruiters ), is free for what is needed.

Why is it assumed that it is "unfair" for a company providing a free service to hoard the data you give to them?

If you don't like LinkedIn, don't use it. If you don't like LinkedIn because they won't let you steal their data, then I'm sure they will be happy that you ignore them. Trying to convince people who don't care to stop using LinkedIn is pointless.

MadcapJake• 11 years ago

Why is it assumed that it is "unfair" for a company providing a free service to hoard the data you give to them?

It's unfair because LinkedIn had built a precedent of openness and made no indication that this was a temporary or limited offer (at least not a straightforward "hey this might shut off someday..." notice).

Also from purely a market perspective, this is unethical as it's about providing a business platform to others and then closing it once your in-house solutions begin to compete with those you've opened the platform to.

If you don't like LinkedIn, don't use it.

Problem is, LinkedIn is not just a tool, it's also a network. You can change it as you would a tool, but you'll leave behind the network. Now, get enough supporters to change with you, well then you may have done it! Similarly, the node.js/io.js tussle was/is about getting a better tool but required getting the network to come with (and this was probably what woke up Joyent).

Trying to convince people who don't care to stop using LinkedIn is pointless.

You may not care but it certainly is a stretch to claim that others don't care (though at face-value, your statement is actually a truism). I would argue that the majority would/will care as long as a strong enough effort is made to show them why. (Also, this link has 200+ points and 100+ comments...)

Retra• 11 years ago

I don't know why people make these kinds of comments. "If you don't like X, don't use it." You can't know if you like it until after you've used it, and by then it is too late. It seems to me like you'd have to be really out of touch with how the world works to say such a thing.

Luckycharms721• 11 years ago

Oh Heck NO! I love the in!

whybroke• 11 years ago

One of the more disturbing issues with linkedin goes almost unnoticed:

For what possible reason does linkedin effectively mandate a photo? Because while I can not think of any reason this could possibly be necessary for any profession except super model, I can certainly see how it can be used in a very negative way.

jpindar• 11 years ago

What do you mean? Lots of people don't have profile pictures.

patmcc• 11 years ago

I find it helps in recognizing connections - "Susan Smith? That doesn't ring a bell...ohhh that Susan, I guess she married and took his name."

But I take your point, it can absolutely be used in a negative way.

ninv• 11 years ago

Who's Viewed Your Profile or your updates.

This feature is enough to avoid Linkedin. I am scared to click on any profile in linkedin just because of this feature. I always use incognito mode to look up folks in Linkedin. It is a creepy site.

Wait till your connections can submit hidden reviews about you and potential employers can view it for a small fee, like Carfax.

driverdan• 11 years ago

There's a privacy option to disable that.

tokai• 11 years ago

I have used that as a feature before applying to a job. I went to the profile of every employee of that firm, before sending my application.

My hope was that my name and face would seem familiar to the people interviewing me. I don't know if it paid off, but I ended up getting the job.

gsam• 11 years ago

If you think you can subvert the business or sociological aspects of hiring and working, you are sadly mistaken. While people still use it, I'll keep a profile up, otherwise bear the mistake of being the 'inept' person without a LinkedIn.

redeleven• 11 years ago

I have been wondering when someone will step up and make a decent alternative to LinkedIn for a while. It's a truly awful site, the sole reason I have not yet deleted it is I have no other easy way of keeping track of professional relationships.. there are no other redeeming features though, everything else seems very poorly implemented, uninteresting, or exploitative.

ychandler• 11 years ago

Aside from startups trying to find their customer base and integrating with LinkedIn, do we have any SMBs/mid-stage Startups (Proven Business Models) on HN who have lost their livelihood now given where LinkedIn is going?

dynofuz• 11 years ago

This is why i never started using it. They've been using these tactics since day one. Spam.

SwellJoe• 11 years ago

You had me until "Quora" as a suggested alternative. If any site approaches the annoyance level of LinkedIn for me, it's Quora. Both have a habit of spamming me; their unsubscribe stuff is kinda dark pattern-y, in that it's easy to end up still getting mail from them even after clicking through to unsubscribe.

That said, I haven't used LinkedIn in years. Have no interest in it, for anything. If I needed work, I might consider going back, but I doubt it. I certainly wouldn't hire someone based on a LinkedIn profile, and I probably wouldn't want to work for someone who did.

LawoftheHarvest• 11 years ago

Quota and Product Hunt are alternatives to LinkedIn?

andrewstuart• 11 years ago

I just find it incredibly creepy that LinkedIn seems to know that I am connected to certain people - I cannot imagine they worked out that I do in fact know that person - not by any obvious means.

liquidcool• 11 years ago

It was posited that your email in their contact list might trigger it, but I've seen it happen after I viewed someone's profile. It appears to guess that X days after viewing the profile, you may now know them.

a3n2• 11 years ago

The only thing I use LI for is to hang my name and summary somewhere.

Occasionally I get a recruiter contact. My current job of three years came from that.

I never endorse anyone. I never respond to endorsements, as most of them are well meaning people endorsing me for something I've never done; I contact them personally by email to say "I don't do endorse, but thanks, still love ya."

I never respond to connect requests. They're increasing in number, and lately sound like 419 scams.

I'm virtually never logged in. They don't have my email access or adddress book.

If they die, or charge me, or something egregiously slimy ... so what. They aren't the only way to connect with people. I actually expect them to go the way of GroupOn (are they still around?).

Just minimize your LinkedIn exposure surface and interaction and you'll be fine.

slaction• 11 years ago

People actually use LinkedIn more that a couple of times a year?

DyslexicAtheist2• 11 years ago

it has turned into a publishing platform which is what they have done right compared to their competition (Xing, Viadeo). useful or not they manage to keep people engaged and coming back.

sidcool• 11 years ago

Why Quora?

qthrul• 11 years ago

+10 years on LinkedIn +2000 connections Lots of recommendations and endorsements

and I wiped it all

BTW, I'm running this tweet update series when people actually notice.

https://twitter.com/JayCuthrell/status/551254076164288513

Spoiler alert: < 0.2% of my "connections" noticed

Aoyagi• 11 years ago

I stopped using LinkedIn right after I heard that it harvests contact details from emails. Thankfully, being "paranoid", I've never allowed it to access that data. After that I deleted my account. Two years later, I received the "these are the people you might know!" email...

No need to tell me to not use that service.

jeffehobbs• 11 years ago

STEP 1: Build open API for content.

STEP 2: Wait until third-party builds innovative product X on API, more innovative than existing engineering staff could build.

STEP 3: Buy third-party company, aquire product X.

STEP 4: Shut down open API so no one can improve upon product X.

apa-sl• 11 years ago

I'm happy with Opera browser since the days when they were still serving ad banners :)

DyslexicAtheist2• 11 years ago

revoke access: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions?hl...

friendly_viking• 11 years ago

A lot of interesting arguments for and against in the comments over the past two days.

The restriction of API is the same that Twitter did when they became more keen on controlling aspects of the app community. Whether or not that has led to decline in the traffic can be debated, or whether it was just 'time'. It is of course LI's prerogative, but a short sighted view of the world, when over the last 10+ years LinkedIn has shown little ability to innovate and evolve the service - third parties could - and they should find ways to encourage (and monetize) that

The proliferation of alternatives as suggested on stopusinglinkedin indicates there are better ways of connecting with professionals. Professionals who understand your space and less spammy/generalist ways to find permanent and freelance work - if that is your objective. There is most certainly room in the world for a more niche approach to something as important in our lives as that which generates our income.

We have been building www.somewhere.com for a bit now, trying to have quality conversations about work. Sort of by accident people are now using it to find each other for projects.

That puts us in the same category as Dribbble and Behance (without the behemoths behind the scenes), yet we are different in that we want to talk about how the sausage is made and not just show the end product. Will that be a 'winning' strategy? Time will tell, we are curious about work, how we do it, when and where and most importantly why - something others have not decided to focus on, but which we believe should be at the core when trying to find people with whom to work.

Anyway - API or not, LinkedIn is not the only game in town, perhaps they have gotten too big for their own good, perhaps they will do just fine with their 300M+ users and corporates willing to spend good money for volume...either way - we can all build and support alternatives that work better.

Stop Using LinkedIn

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