It seems there are many solutions for social media these days, but only one LinkedIn. Why are we still putting up with it? I’m surprised there’s not been a contender yet, or maybe I am not aware and perhaps that could be the rub; the challenge of acquiring enough traffic for the network effect to take hold.
Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
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Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#2good idea, let's build it! The only two others are really:
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#3Network effects
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#4I'll think out loud... There is a mix of users: (a) individuals (both free and premium); (b) hiring organizations; (c) intermediaries. How much of LinkedIn's revenue comes from the different user types?
It feels like Linked has somewhat "perfected" the social-media-as-networking business model. To me, it looks like another enshittification. But to investors, it probably looks like successful optimization. Ergo, I would not want to try to start a business to "outdo" LinkedIn.
This leaves me wondering, what other business models exist? What would have to happen for each of these other models to have a decent chance of taking off?
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#5Linkedin is less of a job portal and more of a Social Network for the workplace. For the job portal, its more popular in tech but not the first stop for other industries. Which one are you trying to dethrone?
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#6The core problem that LinkedIn solves has nothing to do with all the "social media" style content that plagues the platform. It is a long-term rolodex to be able to talk to former co-workers, while also getting contacted by recruiters (double-edged sword that that is), and for that purpose works just fine, even allowing you to ignore the other warts.
So if you were going to build a competitor, you'd need to get everyone who has built a profile on linkedin and built a 20 year rolodex of their network to all migrate away.
I'm not saying it cannot happen, I'm saying it is not a tech problem, so building a new flavor of the same app and hoping it wins out is an even higher-risk bet than most startups, and therefore does not fall into most people's risk tolerances.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#7The core problem that LinkedIn solves has nothing to do with all the "social media" style content that plagues the platform. It is a long-term rolodex to be able to talk to former co-workers, while also getting contacted by recruiters (double-edged sword that that is), and for that purpose works just fine, even allowing you to ignore the other warts. So if you were going to build a competitor, you'd need to get every…
yeah. think you'd be most likely to get there by starting off with something else (e.g. collaboration platform for high value vertical that needs more structured comms than LinkedIn) that incidentally has profiles and connections and it just happening to become popular enough for people from adjacent industries to start joining just for the profile visibility and messages...
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#8Competition in... what? I fail to see what LinkedIn is and what their purpose is. The default feed is AI slop.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#9Just needs someone to build it and grow it
This can be done in many other fields or places where people are wondering why there isn't more competition
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't there competition to LinkedIn yet?
#10The core problem that LinkedIn solves has nothing to do with all the "social media" style content that plagues the platform. It is a long-term rolodex to be able to talk to former co-workers, while also getting contacted by recruiters (double-edged sword that that is), and for that purpose works just fine, even allowing you to ignore the other warts. So if you were going to build a competitor, you'd need to get every…
I mean yeah, it's the same problem any new social media site needs to solve