TL;DR: I won't participate in LinkedIn communications, because I have no more trust in LinkedIn. For important matters, please send email instead.
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LinkedIn would have the potential of being useful. Unfortunately, it has in recent times become a master of dark patterns (see https://www.darkpatterns.org/), and I see no indication of this stopping any time soon.
Just a few examples:
- I've been getting LinkedIn requests from women "to share the passion of love", with LinkedIn apparently being unable / unwilling to filter this as spam.
- LinkedIn has started prefilling communication fields in ways that I do not like at all - for example, pre-filling responses with "Hi XYZ, thanks for reaching out. I’d like to learn more." - No, I don't like to learn more. It's preposterous to pre-fill communication forms like that, LinkedIn.
- I've been getting emails saying "You have 1 new message" - but instead of showing the message right there (I am looking at email right now, for goodness' sake), LinkedIn forces me to open the website, or the app, so that it can track me better.
I could of course leave LinkedIn, the same way I left Facebook a few years ago. The problem is that the network itself is very interesting, and unlike Facebook, I never had any real trust that information on LinkedIn would be private. So rather than abandoning it, I just want to clarify that I am not using it for communication purposes, because a) I cannot assume our communication to remain private, and b) I'd like to stay away from the dark patterns of LinkedIn as much as possible. Like everyone else, I am trying to do my best to mitigate the onslaught of digital overload - my detachment from LinkedIn is a further step in that direction.