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Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

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Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#121

Post by MattGaiser »

clairity wrote: post #60
MattGaiser wrote: post #25

There are a lot of objections on here to being "valued" and "commodified." I don't understand why. You are valued every time you go to an interview or ask for a raise. You can leverage your network in the same way as you can leverage "investment." To me this is already a more transparent version of what already happens.

points are a pretty poor proxy for the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans (or even animals), no matter how sophisticated the point system might be. it also paints an illusory objective sheen (aka ass cover™) over a highly subjective evaluation. you might believe in the point system if it favors you, but that doesn't make the point system any more transparent or "good". we're just not…

> the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans

Does this matter for the vast majority of jobs? I have lots of skills. I am a published writer. I have won innovation competitions. I can build large cities with high property values in SimCity.

None of that matters for my employment. I am a software engineer. For the purposes of work I am a commodity. My past job replaced me fairly easily when I left. Companies are truly only buying a subset of skills on the labour market.

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#122

Post by jwozn »

MattGaiser wrote: post #121
clairity wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

points are a pretty poor proxy for the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans (or even animals), no matter how sophisticated the point system might be. it also paints an illusory objective sheen (aka ass cover™) over a highly subjective evaluation. you might believe in the point system if it favors you, but that doesn't make the point system any more transparent or "good". we're just not…

> the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans Does this matter for the vast majority of jobs? I have lots of skills. I am a published writer. I have won innovation competitions. I can build large cities with high property values in SimCity. None of that matters for my employment. I am a software engineer. For the purposes of work I am a commodity. My past job replaced me fairly easily when…

Genuinely curious and not just trolling, but do you put this on your resume: "I can build large cities with high property values in SimCity."

I do not play SimCity so am unaware of the difficulty of building cities of any size.

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#123

Post by EGreg »

EGreg wrote: post #57
adventured wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of things that weren't considered offensive on the Internet 10 or 20 years ago, that are now offensive. It shouldn't take more than a brief amount of thought to realize what imagery trading humans conjures up, and what happens next in terms of outrage and scandal and what will inevitably plague the service accordingly. Hint: will the trading all be perfectly fair? Without bigotry, without bias, withou…

Expecting fairness in capitalism is like expecting the olympic games to feature random contestants drawn from a pool of the population at large.

There are winners who go on to the next level

And there are losers who drop out

Takes money to make money

In pure Capitalism you aren’t supposed to rebalance things for “fairness”. Bailing out the losers just makes the market competition weaker. It’s survival of the fittest. What exactly is “fairness” in the context of Capitalism? Someone happened to be at the right place and make money. Now they are ahead. And why not?

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#124

Post by mleonhard »

tkiolp4 wrote: post #106

I don’t want a score associated with my name, so I wouldn’t use your service. I wonder how many people would like to have an associated “trust” score; I mean if you are an average individual I imagine you would get an average score of, let’s say, 5 over 10... you’ll look ridiculously untrustworthy compared to someone who has a score of 9/10. At least in the real world you have a chance to prove that you could be as t…

Second. I want a LinkedIn that respects its users. Sellff doesn't need to make a product that is much different from LinkedIn.

1. Let me make an online resume, publicly connect with past colleagues, and give and receive recommendations and skills endorsements.

2. Sell job postings.

3. Sell search tools for jobs & candidates.

4. Don't trick people into uploading their contacts.

5. Don't provide an Invite All feature. Require users to state the relationship type for every invitation sent. Allow me to opt-out of connections by type: acquaintance, family, friend, school, work,etc.

6. Respect my communication preferences. For example, don't rename the preferences and re-enable them every few years.

7. Don't break core product functionality. For example, don't remove the email archive button for a year. Use functional integration tests.

8. Provide discussion Groups with useful moderation tools. This would draw users to your site every day. Don't provide useless moderation tools and let all groups flood with spam. Recruiters must pay for every message they post to a Group.

New feature idea: Allow groups to curate comprehensive FAQs. It could be like Quora & Stack Overflow for professional questions. This could grow to be a very popular and bring a lot of daily traffic.

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#125

Post by mooreds »

mleonhard wrote: post #124
tkiolp4 wrote: post #106

I don’t want a score associated with my name, so I wouldn’t use your service. I wonder how many people would like to have an associated “trust” score; I mean if you are an average individual I imagine you would get an average score of, let’s say, 5 over 10... you’ll look ridiculously untrustworthy compared to someone who has a score of 9/10. At least in the real world you have a chance to prove that you could be as t…

Second. I want a LinkedIn that respects its users. Sellff doesn't need to make a product that is much different from LinkedIn. 1. Let me make an online resume, publicly connect with past colleagues, and give and receive recommendations and skills endorsements. 2. Sell job postings. 3. Sell search tools for jobs & candidates. 4. Don't trick people into uploading their contacts. 5. Don't provide an Invite All feature.…

> Allow me to opt-out of connections by type: acquaintance, family, friend, school, work,etc.

I'd also love an 'age out' functionality.

As far as LinkedIn shows, someone I work with at my current job shows up as the same strength of connection as a random person I chatted with once at a conference a decade ago. Time and number of interactions should play some role in the strength of connection as displayed in the UX (at least to me).

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#126

Post by mleonhard »

4sellff wrote: post #86
grenoire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... it's not transparent? I have no idea what a 1-1000 rating means, or how it's calculated. The function by which this number is generated might not suit my proxy for trust. And if I see someone with an outstanding score the first impression that it sparks won't be trust, but that this person must've successfully gamed it somehow.

We have tried to be very clear on how the TRU Score is determined [hover over the number and you will see a tooltip/modal that provides details]. Obviously, sharing the actual algorithm would most certainly allow people to game the system. A couple of other items to consider: [1] The TRU Score is updated 1x day [2] The TRU Score is a very slow moving value [3] As designed, it would likely take years for a member to m…

You have built a social credit system [0]. Such systems harm individuals and society.

I think you overestimate the willingness of people to participate in such a system.

And if you succeed in manipulating enough users into joining, would your conscience make you miserable?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#127

Post by zendude213 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #26
dvtrn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turning personal trust in others into what looks like a stock market game strikes me as quite odd. Because it feels like turning the individual into a commodity?

But that is what you are in the workplace. And you admit this every time you switch jobs or ask for a raise.

What an insipid and silly assertion. Just because I can switch jobs or ask for a raise doesn’t mean I’m nothing but a commodity in the labor market. Classic category error. But makes sense why you seem obsessed with a product that wants to reduce you to a number

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#128

Post by clairity »

MattGaiser wrote: post #121
clairity wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

points are a pretty poor proxy for the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans (or even animals), no matter how sophisticated the point system might be. it also paints an illusory objective sheen (aka ass cover™) over a highly subjective evaluation. you might believe in the point system if it favors you, but that doesn't make the point system any more transparent or "good". we're just not…

> the amazing variety of skills, proficiencies, and perceptions of humans Does this matter for the vast majority of jobs? I have lots of skills. I am a published writer. I have won innovation competitions. I can build large cities with high property values in SimCity. None of that matters for my employment. I am a software engineer. For the purposes of work I am a commodity. My past job replaced me fairly easily when…

> "I am a software engineer.... Companies are truly only buying a subset of skills on the labour market."

yeah, if you buy in wholesale and premise your argument that way, then of course arguing the premise seems ludicrous. i'm questioning that acceptance itself.

when it comes to value creation, it's rarely the skills list that makes a person, a team, a company, effective, but rather an unquantifiable synergy of individualistic and combined abilities. on a basketball team, you can assume every forward is interchangable with every other one, but then you'd never win a championship and presumably would never understand why.

Re: Show HN: I built a zero-cost, ad-free alternative to LinkedIn

#129

Post by chris37879 »

4sellff wrote: post #86
grenoire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But... it's not transparent? I have no idea what a 1-1000 rating means, or how it's calculated. The function by which this number is generated might not suit my proxy for trust. And if I see someone with an outstanding score the first impression that it sparks won't be trust, but that this person must've successfully gamed it somehow.

We have tried to be very clear on how the TRU Score is determined [hover over the number and you will see a tooltip/modal that provides details]. Obviously, sharing the actual algorithm would most certainly allow people to game the system. A couple of other items to consider: [1] The TRU Score is updated 1x day [2] The TRU Score is a very slow moving value [3] As designed, it would likely take years for a member to m…

> The TRU Score is primarily based on your activity on the platform and the community reaction to that activity

This part alone makes me not interested in this platform. As a software engineer, I do not want to be forced into some social dance on a networking site just to make me eligible for jobs, but it seems like these days that's what everyone expects you to do. We can't all be professional social media users and be good at our jobs too.

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