I think I just figured out what LinkedIn was up to with its algorithm, and it's clever. I believe we are at the inflection point of complete enshittification.
I'm kind of new-ish to the game of keeping the hungry hungry LinkedIn algorithm fed, and as much as I hate that this is how we are having to sing for our suppers at this moment in time, I do kind of find some enjoyment in reverse engineering the shenanigans at play with our minds here.
Here's my thinking...
Exhibit A: A number of prominent LinkedIn "voices" (hate that word, but hate it less than "influencer") have been complaining loudly about how their "reach" has been diminished on LinkedIn vs. other platforms like Medium or Musker (formerly X). Essentially, they are observing less impressions and interactions with their posts than they had previously, at least on an impression-to-follower basis.
Personal take - I couldn't care less on the surface since that's a pain I am not in a position to feel, but it's an interesting data point.
Exhibit B: Within the last week or so, LinkedIn sent out off-platform / traditional emails to people who have what is called "Creator Mode" turned on - essentially, Creator Mode replaces your "Connect" button with a "Follow" button and gives individuals access to a toolset conducive to making posting and interacting easier on the platform.
The gist of the email was that LinkedIn was no longer going to differentiate between "Creators" and non-Creators and they were removing any features that were once exclusive to the Creator camp.
Personal take - Everyone's a Creator now. Yay!
Exhibit C: You may have noticed shiny new "Top Voices" badges on profiles. These badges are earned by answering AI-generated questions within a taxonomy of domain-specific areas of expertise.
It's a fairly rudimentary gamification on the surface, but below the surface it's an obvious Machine Learning exercise.
Personal take - Are training LinkedIn's AI for them for free, just like we willingly gave up our personal information (and souls) to Mark Zuckerberg in exchange for likes and our 15 milliseconds of fame?
What does this all lead to?
I'm not one for making big predictions, but if I connect the logical dots, this is what I see happening with LinkedIn over the next 12-18 months or so:
- The value received by Creators from the platform will erode as LinkedIn slowly starts favoring its own AI generated content...that - don't forget - was trained by us in pursuit of shiny Top Voices badges in the first place.
- I don't know what this will end up looking like exactly, but I do see there being friction introduced that will limit direct engagement between someone posting content and people commenting on / reacting to content...think of it like a "wrapper" function where you will interact with an AI agent that will then make a determination to engage the human creator or simply respond on their behalf without their engagement...very similar to how Google wraps search results in its own commercialized output.
- Eventually the lines will blur between human and bot creations and interactions, but unlike other social platforms where the bots are created and controlled by humans outside of the platform, LinkedIn has created a closed architecture to where only their bots are allowed...and potentially third party bots in the future once Microsoft figures out how to monetize them. But the bottom line is that every single human interaction with the platform will feed the algorithm in some way, and that insight will be sold back to us in some way. Once this transformation occurs, we might as well be living in the metaverse because the entire concept of human interaction will be stripped out and replaced with an artificial substitute that will learn as we learn.
At the end of the day, the "social" aspect of this "social network" will be intermediated by the platform's AI, which we are gleefully feeding and will continue to feed as long as the promise of LinkedIn stardom is dangled in front of us.
We'll see the Big Tech rent-seeking behavior fully kick in, and then we will see the value of the platform diminish to zero for everyone except those willing to pay for bots to talk to other bots on your behalf hoping that you can find the right bot influencers to break through the bot noise in the big bot echo chamber.
Or something like that. At least that was the thought that I just had that I felt compelled to write about because now I am beholden to algorithmic overlords.
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