A genuine question for the people here, I am just a college student so maybe I am missing something, but does anybody actually browse through linkedin? The only times I actually open it up is when either I did something that I would like to remember when I update my Resume at a later date, or when my friends text me to open it up and like their post :)

When I'm bored and Tiktok brain rot isn't enough, I sometimes scroll through LinkedIn to see what happened in my network. The most interesting events to me is "oh, that guy has been at <company> for <number> years now, cool" and "ah that guy got a new job, how nice"... and then I go to bed. :D

I get an occasional request from a friend who is trying to build a following to interact with their posts to boost their visibility. I'll go through, like a few then sit around for a while desperately trying to think of something non-generic to say in a comment, fail to think of anything and just add an "I agree" comment.

While I agree that most of the feed is filled with useless posts, for some business sectors it actually contains useful posts.

I work in the European energy market sector and LinkedIn is one of the to go places to catch up with developments in the markets, the latest the analyses, and upcoming events. And some posts are actually good, you just need to filter out the rest. I wish there would be a better platform for this specific content (maybe I'm simply missing it) but for now, I find it there.

Coming from a computer science background and kinda accidentally ended up in energy markets, I was surprised that LinkedIn is the place for this content I(in contrast to the computer science field).

> but does anybody actually browse through linkedin?

Sometimes I do, reflexively, when I check my messages or some specific people. I get no value out of it. But I do know people who seriously use linkedin, as in read, post, comment, and message people.

I open it to do the daily puzzles. But it means that I'm subject to 1 or 2 cringe posts before I get there.

The trick here is to have connections that follow and like content that is worth following, ever since connecting with some peers in the database space, my feed is filled with things like new research, C++ performance optimizations, and the like, instead of management fables and feel good stories.

I think it depends what your career is. It used to be that developers hated it because during the ZIRP era they were being spammed with badly fitting job offers from sketchy recruiters.

Now that the market has tanked, their feelings may have softened somewhat.

And some of the industry posts can be interesting.

Most people randomly accept invitations on LinkedIn: "We're both humans, so I felt we should connect!".

But if you actively prune / curate WHO you add to your LinkedIn, you end up with a feed that is genuinely useful.

What you do need to know is WHY you want to use LinkedIn. It could be to find your next job, finding potential customers, or just keeping up to date with <INDUSTRY>.

When Twitter imploded I expected technical discussions to migrate to Mastodon or Bluesky. What happened next shocked me.

Technical content appeared on LinkedIn.

Not just one or two posts. Tens of posts. Every day. Technical content from the thought leaders in the industry.

Yes, there was still corporate slop.

Yes, LinkedIn still mostly serves for self-aggrandisement.

But there were nuggets of gold, for those prepared to sift for them.

Seriously: LinkedIn is still mostly garbage. The quality of discussion is not great. But it has improved a bit, and given the fractured nature of social media at the moment it's somewhat viable to use it for technical content. It very much depends on the specific area. If you want to talk about the new hotness (e.g. using LLMs to write software) there is a lot. For more niche areas I expect other venues will do better.

I don't add people to my network to reduce the noise. I don't pay but get "requests" for software development that are not personally directed, so I delete those. Any job advertisement I am notified about is closed by the time I click on it, within seconds of the email. Any misspelt ad is a phishing crime in the making.

Maybe I should give them money :)

Oh dude, welcome to the business.

I've been in IT since before linkedin existed.

Me and my friends have a lot of jokes about linkedin, a lot of prejudices. I'm going to let you form your own opinion. Trust me, you will form one, once you start working in different offices with office people.

Yes, because I've banned myself from all the good sites.

You have to ruthlessly prune the feed to get something worth reading.

The daily puzzle games have more worth than the average linkedin post.

It used to be relevant.

Then tech jobs stopped existing and now Linkedin is a pure AI content driven jerk off engine for desperate people without a (real) job to sound important.

I find it's easy to scroll past very sloppy posts. And 1 in 2 posts are genuinely interesting/teach me something new about the world and the people in it - how people conduct business - and most of all their improbable trajectories that got them where they are currently in their career. It's very interesting and the recommendations are great for me. I don't find too much slop or cringe content, and am confused when people complain about it so much. It feels like people don't really know how to separate slop content (self-promotion/empty AI posts) from genuinely written life and work experiences. And HN is definitely an echo-chamber, I see a huge amount of people (more than instagram tbh in mid-30s age bracket) contribute regularly to linkedin.

it is more interesting than internal ms viva