> LinkedIn is pretty important nowadays when searching for work
I agree with your larger point esp. Gmail - would be quite crippling - but I haven't had LinkedIn for years now, and it hasn't negatively impacted my job or searches. If anything, it helped me be more proactive when I was looking instead of feeling like I was praying to the abyss.
There was a second in ~2020 where LinkedIn was starting to feel like finding work in the Myspace days - people were expressing themselves in more personal ways on their profiles (I guess because of the lockdown) and remote work was just kicking off. It had this glow that reminded me a lot of the early 2000s work scene online.
Soon enough, as LI caught onto the trend those quirky profiles and posts were replaced with branded influencers and "viral posts". The platform quickly became as influencer-focused as Instagram or Twitter, which feels inappropriate for a job site. But it's not a job site they say, it's a career platform... or professional network... or something (of which a huge aspect is uploading your resume and applying to jobs). Anyway, the way the LinkedIn influencer sphere covered layoffs was like an E! television show - they loved it.
Turns out LinkedIn is not an "essential social media" shall we say. It's not the career accessory that my GitHub and a Macbook are, it could have been, but they chose their path.
I agree with your larger point esp. Gmail - would be quite crippling - but I haven't had LinkedIn for years now, and it hasn't negatively impacted my job or searches. If anything, it helped me be more proactive when I was looking instead of feeling like I was praying to the abyss.
There was a second in ~2020 where LinkedIn was starting to feel like finding work in the Myspace days - people were expressing themselves in more personal ways on their profiles (I guess because of the lockdown) and remote work was just kicking off. It had this glow that reminded me a lot of the early 2000s work scene online.
Soon enough, as LI caught onto the trend those quirky profiles and posts were replaced with branded influencers and "viral posts". The platform quickly became as influencer-focused as Instagram or Twitter, which feels inappropriate for a job site. But it's not a job site they say, it's a career platform... or professional network... or something (of which a huge aspect is uploading your resume and applying to jobs). Anyway, the way the LinkedIn influencer sphere covered layoffs was like an E! television show - they loved it.
Turns out LinkedIn is not an "essential social media" shall we say. It's not the career accessory that my GitHub and a Macbook are, it could have been, but they chose their path.