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LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

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Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#241
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything from a Facebook domain hitting my mail server is bounces them back to Facebook's abuse and postmaster addresses. I know categorically that it is abuse, because I am the sole user of my mail server and do not now and have never had a Facebook account, and have repeatedly asked them in various ways to stop spamming me. Useless, of course. But just because they ignore internet norms of decent behavior doesn't m…

For what it's worth I have a Facebook account and have all the email notification settings off and can't remember seeing an email from Facebook in over a year.

I noticed that when I stopped checking my Facebook account, Facebook started sending me FOMO messages ("Hey! You have messages! People are saying things! Please come look!")

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#242

LinkedIn is the king of "dark patterns" UI - every part of their website is optimized to trick you into doing something you have no intention of doing.

I figured this out quite a few years ago. The first time they spammed me, I signed in and turned off anything that said they would send me email. The next time they spammed I deleted my account and black-holed the email address I used to sign up with them. I gather things continued to go downhill from there (e.g. spamming all your contacts).

I can't understand why people would continue to use a web site from such an obviously dishonest company.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#243
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They used to give guidance about what 'know' meant and I still adhere to the 'I will only link with you if I have properly worked with you' line. The fact that few other people do have devalued its use.

At some point, LinkedIn changed its mind and decided that you should connect to anyone you're barely acquainted with and/or have exchanged an email with. They're actively encouraging forming these "devalued" links. They even use shady practices like borderline forgery of invitations.

I remember the point in time when joining Facebook required a .edu email address.

My how things have changed.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#244
post #60

Sounds like the bubble is bursting. The established companies whose valuation was based on multiples of future growth are taking the hit, getting in line with more traditional multiples of current revenue.

While I agree with you, I would say that bubble bursting is more synonymous with larger disasters like the housing crash in 08 or the Dotcom bust in 2000. In my opinion what's happening with overvalued companies is more of a market correction. To me it doesn't seem like people are in panic, people are just saying things along the lines of "well yeah, they were overvalued" and they move on.

Let's see what happens first. The 2008 crash was orderly too up until Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in Sept 2008:

https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...

Market topped in Oct 2007, and then there was a bunch of debate over whether we were or weren't in a recession through the first half of 2008. Bear Sterns went bust in March 2008, everybody was like "Well duh, they should have known it was coming", people thought it was the end of it, and the market recovered. AIG went bankrupt in Aug 2008, Lehman brothers in Sept 2008, and that's when everybody panicked. TARP passed in Q4 2008.

The dot-com bubble burst actually was pretty orderly - basically the starry-eyed buyers for tech stocks ran out, and companies couldn't get money on the public markets. Consequences were limited mostly to the people who had invested and the founders & employees of those companies. The road downward was actually more gradual than the road upward had been.

https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#245
post #43
post #14

Honestly I am feeling a bit of joy watching LinkedIn take a hit. Not because I think their product is terrible but because of the endless spam emails I keep receiving from them, despite how many times I click unsubscribe.

Or how about the phony "people you may know". They suggested I may know my 4 year old Niece because somebody uploaded the email address created for her into their system. She definitely doesn't have a LinkedIn account, but they portray a profile-photoless "shadow profile" as-if she does.

The fact that they intermingle "add this person to my network" with "invite this person to LinkedIn" on that page drives me insane.

I accidentally sent my friends a bunch of annoying messages to their school email addresses as I sat there clicking and asking myself, "How are we not connected, we've known each other for years?". Really we are but LinkedIn creates these shadow profiles for each of their email addresses.

Especially since they seem to never go away and you can invite repeatedly, like once a quarter when you scroll through asking yourself, "How are we not connected, we've known each other for years?"

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#246
A lot of LinkedIn hate, but no comment I've read acknowledges that LinkedIn (in some fields, and growing) has replaced the resume.

It's almost a universal format — there's a lot of value in that. I can just give someone this standard URL instead of creating some crazy word doc with weird indentations.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#247

A lot of LinkedIn hate, but no comment I've read acknowledges that LinkedIn (in some fields, and growing) has replaced the resume. It's almost a universal format — there's a lot of value in that. I can just give someone this standard URL instead of creating some crazy word doc with weird indentations.

That's ridiculous. I have literally never applied for a job where I could just give a Linkedin link instead of using a resume or filling out a form.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#248
post #213
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the button it's not an CTA to connect with her but a CTA to invite her to LinkedIn. She would then get an email basically saying "Uncle Uptown would like you to join LinkedIn!" Agree it's scummy and they are mixed in with actual folks on LinkedIn but they are not creating shadow profiles.

This is on mobile. It shows her name, her email address, and a circular button with a human silhouette and a plus symbol on it. All in a section titled "People you may know". The implication is absolutely that she is a user of the site.

IIRC there was one very subtle difference on mobile to differentiate users vs. non-users, but it was something easily overlooked. On desktop it's slightly more obvious, but still misleading IMO.

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#249
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason a LinkedIn competitor hasn't emerged is the same reason a viable Facebook competitor hasn't emerged: at this point the network effects are too strong, and it's extremely difficult to beat incumbents because of that. Besides, think about how much flak some HN submissions get for being "just another social network." I think the whole social network market has fully saturated and there will be additional diff…

> The reason a LinkedIn competitor hasn't emerged is the same reason a viable Facebook competitor hasn't emerged: at this point the network effects are too strong, and it's extremely difficult to beat incumbents because of that. I'd say LinkedIn actually has stronger network effects than Facebook, or other consumer social networks. Consumer social networks are used more casually, so it's easier to get users to sign u…

The only social network I can reliably guess that someone is on, regardless of job type, is, alas, LinkedIn.

My friend who is a biologist doesn't have a Twitter since nobody in her field uses it, but she has a LinkedIn.

My software developer friends have Twitter, so that's my go-to... but then it's a mishmash of business and personal. Or sometimes only personal, so it feels weird to talk business over it. So then... email, since soft devs - rightfully so - dislike LinkedIn.

I don't know the solution, but it's clear one should be built. Does LinkedIn have an easy "export my social graph" option to at least jump start w competitor?

Re: LinkedIn shares drop 40%, erasing $10B of company's value

#250
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the sad thing about it is that (i) they have so much mindshare they don't need to do that shit any more, and (ii) it probably makes the average person that would consider subscribing to an online networking tool less likely to consider buying LinkedIn Premium...

Doesn't seem like there's much value in linkedin premium for non-recruiters and the recruiters certainly aren't complaining about spammy practices.

linkedin's product choices make more sense when you consider that recruiters are their only customers
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