For a time, LinkedIn was an incredible social network that brought immense value to my career and skills development. Today, however, it’s almost unrecognizable—bordering on useless. While there are likely objective statistics showing LinkedIn’s continued growth—perhaps in areas like revenue from professional subscriptions, job ads, or even vanity metrics like total posts, profiles, and engagement—something essential seems to be missing.

The feed algorithm has become dominated by engagement-bait posts, rendering the primary feed practically worthless. The addition of a “games” section in the sidebar is baffling and frustrating. Meanwhile, the “Latest Articles” feature has little to do with my professional interests, despite LinkedIn having detailed information about my career, including specific technical terms that could be used to tailor my feed.

Profiles have become generic and formulaic, a trend that could worsen with the adoption of large language models (LLMs). Recommendations are always overly positive, offering little meaningful insight, and any skill can be added to your profile with just an endorsement. Professional network discovery is ineffective, and messaging is both restrictive and riddled with spam, with ads disguised as messages being a particularly annoying dark pattern.

I’ve found far more value in expanding my professional network and staying informed about industry trends through X.

I’ll continue to watch LinkedIn passively to see what happens. If there’s ever a revival, it will likely offer valuable lessons on how to turn around a social network. However, I suspect it would take a monumental effort, something on the scale of a “Founder Mode” push, which I doubt the current LinkedIn product managers can deliver.