My first experience with LinkedIn was being spammed by them, after a friend signed up with them. Asking, he had no idea why they were sending emails to me. A few years later, it came out that LinkedIn was using lots of dark patterns to trick users. With that as a first impression, I have no intention of using LinkedIn.

My first experiences were getting these because I was in the corporate address book at a big corp, and I guess people were looking for work.

At the time, Linked In wouldn't even let you opt out of mail without making an account, which is definitely never happening. (Thankfully, they eventually added a way to tell them to not contact me again, but I'm going to carry my grudge)

As mentioned by another poster, not in every area or situation (covid...) it's feasible to find jobs without LinkedIn. I kind of agree with you, however I just keep my contact list small. Probably I miss some opportunities with that but at the same time it mostly consists of people who have little interest to traverse my contacts. As soon as there's an equally well working alternative for job hunts, I'm off but I don't see that yet. I'm curious about honeypot.io etc. but I don't like the idea to put people with price tags online

I have used WeAreDevelopers for my job hunts since I prefer curation over quality. On LinkedIn anybody can post a job ad. On WeAreDevelopers you atleast know that there is a selection process behind it.

>"hey, do you mind if I go through your address book and contact all your friends and family and ask them to be my friend too? If you consent, say, 'what' or 'huh'"

At some point I spent some hours to investigate how they did it and trying to tell google (gmail) to not let Linkedin do it (again?). Not sure how much success I had. I think it is a mistake/problem of Google to allow such things.

> What would you say to that? Probably something like, they're abusive and deceitful, whatever they have to offer, they'll probably damage your life more than they'd help you.

I don't really understand how you make the jump to this part

The benefits are calculable, but the consequences of abuse are unpredictable, and if someone has crossed your boundary once, you don't know how far they will go.

With the abusive relationship example, if someone's gone as far as snoop through your phone and text your friends without your knowledge, there is no telling what they'll do next. It's common for someone who does this to also be a verbal and physical abuser, which is rarely worth sticking it out for, regardless of how well-connected they are.

With the specific LinkedIn example, they may e.g. sell your data to third parties, leak your data publicly via irresponsible data storage, and allow employees to access your data without authorization. Not to mention spamming your entire contact list with LinkedIn invitations in your name.

Is that worth it to you in exchange for some networking?

But right there is where the power of your metaphor breaks down. It is quite unusual for a website to also be a verbal and physical abuser (recent eBay cyberstalking being the incredibly rare exception).

I think the idea of a metaphor is that it is not literal, do you not agree?

I grew up with the Internet and learned to navigate fake "download" buttons, ads etc. Not to brag too much, but I don't find it hard to use LinkedIn without accidentally consenting to spam my friends. I've never accidentally spammed my contacts via LinkedIn nor ResearchGate nor Academia.edu.

If you use it right, it can be useful. LinkedIn isn't your friend, but you can use their platform for your advantage.