Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

From my experience you can opt-out of the bullshit with no ill effects, at least in the software industry. My activity is completely empty, no posts, no likes, etc and that doesn't seem to hurt me. I mostly use the tool as a rolodex to keep in touch with professional connections and be reachable by recruiters.

The problem of course is that the platform doesn't seem to understand that and desperately tries to encourage me to participate which seems pathetic at this point. They have 2 years worth of analytics that essentially show them a big middle finger, why keep trying?

View on HN

Posts like this baffle me.

This tool seems to function perfectly well as a rolodex and as a recruiter contact for you (its primary function for myself and most others) but somehow it's problematic for to have other functions for other users.

> The problem of course is that the platform doesn't seem to understand that and desperately tries to encourage me to participate which seems pathetic at this point. They have 2 years worth of analytics that essentially show them a big middle finger, why keep trying?

What a strange personification of a vast social network. Who is it that you think is up awake late at night, desperate and pathetic? What middle finger? Recruiters can reach you, LinkedIn got paid for that.

They have metrics for conversions when they push for engagement. It works well enough. Nobody's out there 'trying' expending extra energy to engage you specifically. It would take more work to exclude you.

Disclaimer: Former LinkedIn employee baffled at how personal you seem to think all this is.

I think it's an understandable position as an individual. Many people are frustrated that all these applications are somewhat forced on them by social and professional engagements in the first place. Even if they haven't been forced on you it has become tedious to have no option to say "STOP NAGGING ME I WILL NEVER PARTICIPATE".

Add to this that even basic OS functions on mobile devices are constantly trying to get you to subscribe to various services and I think it's reached a boiling point for a vocal segment of people who just want to be able to go about their UI in peace. Unfortunately some data analyst at every big company has decided it's ok to have a popup every time the user visits to remind them to engage, and sign them up for 25 different email lists they have to unsub from individually, and have notifications pop up on their phone for no reason other than to get them to open the app, just because it results in 2% more users signing up for some service and it hasn't yet cause the other 98% to rage quit.

Disclaimer: this kind of behavior has been driving me insane for several years but there's almost no mechanism to avoid these issues on the whole. Also this isn't targeted at you in particular but just to illustrate what I think is a growing resentment amongst a set of users.

Baffled by how defensive you are of a former employer. Linkedin emailed my contacts without asking. And the same has happened to me from my contacts. I would get emailed repeatedly to join. I don't support these dark patterns nor those who have worked for companies that build those dark patterns.

Ohhhh I'm with you 100%. There's plenty of shady bs that LinkedIn has done and this wasn't a blanket endorsement at all.

But I do think the parent's personification of the platform misguided.

OP is just voicing annoyance at a nag feature, nothing personal, just a UX critique. I'm not sure why it would matter to them if the feature increases engagement for others.

> somehow it's problematic for to have other functions for other users

I think it's a fair question to raise when the other function seems out of place or almost inappropriate for what the tool is trying to achieve. I feel like a professional platform should be trying to maintain a higher standard instead of decaying into yet another Instagram-like cesspool.

> What middle finger?

The ~2 years of analytic data showing that I have zero interest in the "features" they're trying to force me to use despite hundreds of attempts? I also find it unlikely to believe that I am literally the only one in this situation, thus why I am raising the issue.

> Nobody's out there 'trying' expending extra energy to engage you specifically.

Not specifically, but surely the platform should be built in such a way to respect the user's decisions? The various nags can have a use to engage new users (that might indeed not be aware of some of the features), but after a certain point it seems counter-productive and annoying. Imagine if every SaaS tool out there would always give you the "new user" onboarding experience with help popups all over the place and call-outs for "new" features, would you enjoy it?

> Disclaimer: Former LinkedIn employee baffled at how personal you seem to think all this is.

I don't think it's personal because I very much doubt I am the only one annoyed by this. The platform has been designed with zero respect for their users and looks like it's intentionally trying to be as annoying as possible. Even Facebook is more subtle in their shenanigans.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com