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LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

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Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#91

Post by DougBTX »

coldtea wrote: post #86
nkozyra wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None whatsoever, the OP is making a gigantic leap based on a logical fallacy. LinkedIn claims X number of users Suggested connections by LinkedIn can be generated for users that do not even have a present LinkedIn account. Therefor, the number X must include those users.

You're using logical fallacy wrong. At best this is a logical error, not a clasifiable fallacy. But it's far more likely that it's just an error of judgement, involving no formal or informal logic at all. Namely, nobody, including OP, made the syllogism you present, with the neat "therefore, X must include" etc step. They simply thought that it's very probable that this is what LinkedIn did to inflate their numbers.

Neither the article nor the title actually talk about inflating numbers, which is how I read it at first too. They only talk about actually increasing the number of users, by sending out invites: "Another example of the lengths LinkedIn will go to in order to increase its user base."

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#92

Post by naterator »

naterator wrote: post #21

Is there an alternative to LinkedIn in that isn't (as) ethically dubious?

Well, in case anyone is curious: I have done a fair amount of searching, and for the most part it is a barren wasteland of alternatives. The only one I've found that looks OK is Seelio[1]. Let's see how this goes.

[1] https://seelio.com

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#93

Post by josefresco »

naterator wrote: post #21

Is there an alternative to LinkedIn in that isn't (as) ethically dubious?

Is there an alternative to LinkedIn period? I'm being serious, is there another "business focused" social network out there scavenging for life?

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#94

Post by grey-area »

jebus989 wrote: post #75
grey-area wrote: post #61

This obsession with collecting users (dead or alive) reminds me of Gogol's Dead Souls - companies trading in users (who may or may not exist) in order to boost their standing and taking out huge loans on the basis of their illusory popularity. Even illusory users can have some value, just like the dead serfs in Gogol's tale, and like the dead serfs, their value is not in their existence, but in being entries on a led…

Is there any evidence LinkedIn reports all members email contacts as LinkedIn users? The g+ post just displays OP's confusion at "connect" really meaning "invite" in instances where contacts don't have a LinkedIn account.

It's the struggle to report more and more users every quarter that is damaging; this leads to the concept of users and their contact list as the property of websites and dark patterns like this.

Is there any evidence LinkedIn reports all members email contacts as LinkedIn users?

I have no idea if LinkedIn reports ghost users as real in annual reports but I'm sure they'll report users, and creating ghosts and deceiving users into thinking they are real will increase dramatically the number of signups for them, so it will help their overall stats, even if those people then do nothing with the account after they discover Robin didn't really invite them and should never have been on the site. This cult of collecting users as trophies or even faking them is both damaging to brands and user-hostile; in the long term it will fail and LinkedIn already has trust issues.

The g+ post just displays OP's confusion at "connect" really meaning "invite" in instances where contacts don't have a LinkedIn account.

The LinkedIn page is deliberately deceptive (showing a dead person as a member who can be added to someone's network), in an attempt to goose their stats and get more signups. There's no confusion here, and I'm surprised that you'd try to characterise it as that, deception might be a better word. If it means invite, it should say invite, and it should be presented as sending an email to a harvested contact, not inviting an already current LinkedIn member. This kind of dark pattern is where you end up if you trust certain metrics blindly and always make the modification which incrementally increases your metric (say user signups), regardless of other consequences. It is clearly designed to deceive.

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#95

Post by grey-area »

ben336 wrote: post #90

Ironic title coming from a post on Google+. In all seriousness though the title is misleading. Its not increasing user numbers, its increasing perceived relevancy, and misleading users into evangelizing its platform.

It's deceiving users into evangelising its platform in order to increase user numbers.

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#97

Post by gutnor »

StavrosK wrote: post #48
blumkvist wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried to explain this line of logic previously on HN and my experience is that the majority of the people here live in their own world. Much like people who enjoy reality TV, just more technically savvy. They babble about how FB decreases audience reach or how they hide their ad targeting instead of realizing the massive opportunity that is presented to the people who are willing to put the work. They besmirch g…

That's because people usually put "morality" over "success of a business, even mine", and that's the world I want to live in. Your world has slaves (they're good business, after all).

No people put morality over "success of other". Most of the time when talking about something convenient, or you own business, people manage to bend their own morality with "rationalisation" or "carefully avoiding looking at the fact".

Our world has slaves.

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#98

Post by Zigurd »

weixiyen wrote: post #24

Really surprised by all the comments here. This seems like a solid business decision by LinkedIn, riding the line of what a user is willing to accept and balancing it well with the potential rewards. Look at every famous company and you'll find tactics that you don't agree with, and sometimes downright illegal (Path). If you're not willing to do desperate things, to do what is necessary for user acquisition, good luc…

It's still an ugly, user-unfriendly tactic that potentially causes embarrassment. It's not evil, but nether is it attractive.

Ethically, it is comparable to food that tries to pass itself off as healthy, while treading the line on sugar and salt content, in order to appeal to unwitting customers. It may sell more, but it also deserves a bad reputation.

Each such optimization for the purpose of revenue has a social cost down the line. There is nothing hypocritical about attempting to lay that social cost on the vendor.

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#99

Post by waylandsmithers »

grey-area wrote: post #61

This obsession with collecting users (dead or alive) reminds me of Gogol's Dead Souls - companies trading in users (who may or may not exist) in order to boost their standing and taking out huge loans on the basis of their illusory popularity. Even illusory users can have some value, just like the dead serfs in Gogol's tale, and like the dead serfs, their value is not in their existence, but in being entries on a led…

Sounds a lot like Google+ at the beginning. "We have 100 million users!!!" Well no, you funneled people using search, gmail, and youtube into some annoying screen where they clicked around to make it go away.

Re: LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already

#100

Post by StavrosK »

gutnor wrote: post #97
StavrosK wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because people usually put "morality" over "success of a business, even mine", and that's the world I want to live in. Your world has slaves (they're good business, after all).

No people put morality over "success of other". Most of the time when talking about something convenient, or you own business, people manage to bend their own morality with "rationalisation" or "carefully avoiding looking at the fact". Our world has slaves.

> No people put morality over "success of other".

I disagree. When was the last time you took some money you saw lying around on someone's table?

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