> I'm baffled by that number given how bad the product is.
That's because the "product" isn't the social network. The "product" is insight and access to much of the professional workforce. Sales and HR use it extensively.
The social network aspect is likely to keep people semi-engaged with the platform and voluntarily disclosing things that Sales and HR can use as signals.
Salespeople using the platform to try to sell me their products is what makes linkedin awful to me. It's one thing to buy ads, but it's awful to spam people's inboxes with messages.
That's kind of a chicken and egg problem though, Linkedin never developed much features outside of recruiting activities so that's the revenue they have.
Linkedin has a much bigger potential than that though, just the social aspect and networking impact could be pretty significant.
That's because the "product" isn't the social network. The "product" is insight and access to much of the professional workforce. Sales and HR use it extensively.
The social network aspect is likely to keep people semi-engaged with the platform and voluntarily disclosing things that Sales and HR can use as signals.