Earlier quoted context omitted.
"All the people I consider professional equals can be found on mailing lists, blogs, weekly digests, stackoverflow, meetups," You have cultivated other networking channels. Great! But I would like to point out to you that now you make the basic cognitive fallacy thinking that anyone who is not doing it "your way" is doing it wrong.
They are indeed doing it wrong if the outcome is a company like linkedin. As technology professionals we can and should be doing much better but instead we are cultivating digital silos that add very little value. I have opted out and nothing about my professional career has diminished so there is an alternative approach that requires nothing like linkedin. Since I'm a counter-example to all the claims your making an…
As I stated the main value proposition of LinkedIn for me is that most of my connections are there.
Replacing the said connections would require work and time, which I would rather spend on other things. The problem with an email list is that there is no automatic update if the email address changes. Therefore, changing to a email list would lead to a poorer result for me.
I prefer introversion to extroversion. Going out to meetings would therefore be a) mentally exhausting b) take time. The former is doable but the latter is really hard to come by with a 9-5 job and kids.
Now, as to the proposition of spending my energies trying to invent an open competitor to LinkedIn... Building communities takes a huge effort and seems to happen mostly by chance. Also, while being a technology professional my core skillset is in CAD and maths and I'm clueless when it comes to web technologies.
So, in order to do a fancy LinkedIn replacement would require a) time to improve on my web skills, which is really wasteful considering lots of people are good at it already, b) create the product c) move all my dear colleagues to the new network.
The last parts are actually the hardest, I have no idea how to build social sites or how to motivate people.
So, to rephrase why I use LinkedIn: It currently provides me value, and I do not see sufficient benefit to spend time changing mine and my colleagues habits when it comes to networking. Most things in life are morally ambiguous and all one can do is to try to do more good than harm within ones limits. Sometimes all an individual can do is go with the flow.
People have different internal motivations. Mine run completely against social things. I prefer to twiddle on algorithms, draw, play the guitar and play with my kids. I use the social frameworks that exist because I see the value they provide but have no energy to change them nor am I motivated to design alternatives to them.
Yeah, middle age, definetly :)
Most peoples are not motivated by ambiguous "this is evil because..." arguments. Most behavioural changes are best driven by positive motivators - one cannot drive people away from anything by saying "the thing is evil". Eating meat is evil and still people do it, including me. What needs to be done is to provide better alternatives that wean people away from option a) (the evil) to option b) over time.