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I still don't understand why people would give their information/data to LinkedIn. Their tactics over the years have been extremely scummy (harvesting contacts

I still don't understand why people would give their information/data to LinkedIn. Their tactics over the years have been extremely scummy (harvesting contacts and sending spam is the one that immediately springs to mind). Its a solution looking for a problem. A lot of these comments seem pretty dubious too.

icebraining 9y ago
All the info I (and, I suspect, most people) put into LI is explicitly supposed to be public, so why wouldn't I give it to them too?
matte_black 9y ago
I'm also inexplicably giving money to LinkedIn. I signed up for their premium plan so long ago, back when it was 200 something a year. They recently shot the price straight through the roof nearly doubling it while removing some features and restricting them to even higher paying tiers. I however, have been grandfathered in to the original price and keep all the original feature set. However, if I quit or cancel my subscription or there is a lapse in payment I lose this benefit forever. It's scummy as fuck. Designed purposely so I never let go.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  You would prefer they charged you more or reduced your features?
- lmartel 9y ago
  That's not the purpose of grandfathered pricing, they just want to raise prices without upsetting active users. If you cancel you're not an active user anymore :)
wpietri 9y ago
I don't understand how you can't understand this. Yes, I have a lot of issues with them. But they are definitely not a solution looking for a problem. They supposedly have 128 m accounts in the US, and there are circa 150 m total people employed here. Even assuming account inflation, I'm sure the majority of professionals have accounts. Certainly when I'm screening resumes, it's very rare for a person not to be on LinkedIn. They've been going since 2002 and are a profitable business that sold for $26 bn. This should be a sign to you that even if it's not your thing, somebody's getting value. Paper resumes were a giant pain in the ass. LinkedIn is a pretty obvious solution to the problems with paper resumes, including that they are hard to write, a pain to update, hard to format, impossible to search, and impossible to use in aggregate. This is obviously great for people hiring, but also great for those seeking employment. During a job search, LinkedIn lets you ask questions like, "Who do I know who works at company X? Who do I know who can introduce me to somebody at company X? Who used to work at Company X so I can get the unvarnished truth about what it's like to work there?" Try that with paper resumes. TL;DR: People use it because it makes finding jobs and/or employees easier than what went before it. Lots of people.

icebraining 9y ago

All the info I (and, I suspect, most people) put into LI is explicitly supposed to be public, so why wouldn't I give it to them too?

matte_black 9y ago

I'm also inexplicably giving money to LinkedIn. I signed up for their premium plan so long ago, back when it was 200 something a year. They recently shot the price straight through the roof nearly doubling it while removing some features and restricting them to even higher paying tiers. I however, have been grandfathered in to the original price and keep all the original feature set. However, if I quit or cancel my subscription or there is a lapse in payment I lose this benefit forever. It's scummy as fuck. Designed purposely so I never let go.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
You would prefer they charged you more or reduced your features?
lmartel 9y ago
That's not the purpose of grandfathered pricing, they just want to raise prices without upsetting active users. If you cancel you're not an active user anymore :)

wpietri 9y ago

I don't understand how you can't understand this. Yes, I have a lot of issues with them. But they are definitely not a solution looking for a problem. They supposedly have 128 m accounts in the US, and there are circa 150 m total people employed here. Even assuming account inflation, I'm sure the majority of professionals have accounts. Certainly when I'm screening resumes, it's very rare for a person not to be on LinkedIn. They've been going since 2002 and are a profitable business that sold for $26 bn. This should be a sign to you that even if it's not your thing, somebody's getting value. Paper resumes were a giant pain in the ass. LinkedIn is a pretty obvious solution to the problems with paper resumes, including that they are hard to write, a pain to update, hard to format, impossible to search, and impossible to use in aggregate. This is obviously great for people hiring, but also great for those seeking employment. During a job search, LinkedIn lets you ask questions like, "Who do I know who works at company X? Who do I know who can introduce me to somebody at company X? Who used to work at Company X so I can get the unvarnished truth about what it's like to work there?" Try that with paper resumes. TL;DR: People use it because it makes finding jobs and/or employees easier than what went before it. Lots of people.