Everything on LinkedIn has all been dead-ends with recruiters not understanding the tech. I got 2 free coffees trying to talk to some guys and then I realized that the privacy concerns far outweighed any 'value' the Microsoft-owned service provides. Really the best thing that's worked recently has all been networking and small forums/chat. It's not easy to get into a network, but once you're in, you see that all the 'good' jobs are taken before they make public boards or recruiter lists. Sibling also mentioned directly applying (even if there isn't a visible opening) and this usually catches more folks' attention and then they don't have to pay a headhunter fee.

I've never needed a LinkedIn account to apply for jobs and you don't need one to search for them on LinkedIn either.

Whenever I find a job on any recruiting website I always just go to the company's website and apply directly.

I still have a LinkedIn profile, but I used Indeed in my last job search and it worked out fine. I opened LinkedIn at the beginning to update my profile, but didn't use it once during the actual search.

A lot of folks seem to forget to question the bigger picture, instead of questioning "how do I get less spam?" you can ask "do I need this service?". If a service is giving you garbage and little value, just throw it in the can.