Probably very few people here are familiar with Xing, the German "business networking site". I was convinced LinkedIn would eat Xing's lunch when they launched in Germany, since the same happened pretty fast to Facebook and its local clone (StudiVZ). However, it hasn't happened then and only now some small tendency for people to prefer LinkedIn can be noticed, but mostly because of international contacts and not because the site is all that great.
Anyway, in the last couple of years, Xing also mutated from a business contact network to a wanna-be Facebook social network, with memes, neurotic posting, outreach metrics etc. Instead of being a contact backbone, it's become an attention leech, basically the same experience as you describe for LinkedIn. At least in case of Xing, it's more or less known that they have been infested by product managers for a long time, whose only metric for success has ever been "innovation (tm)", so it's explainable, but still stupid. I suppose same could be happening at LinkedIn, even though they never have been good to begin with, palatable at most.
Anyway, in the last couple of years, Xing also mutated from a business contact network to a wanna-be Facebook social network, with memes, neurotic posting, outreach metrics etc. Instead of being a contact backbone, it's become an attention leech, basically the same experience as you describe for LinkedIn. At least in case of Xing, it's more or less known that they have been infested by product managers for a long time, whose only metric for success has ever been "innovation (tm)", so it's explainable, but still stupid. I suppose same could be happening at LinkedIn, even though they never have been good to begin with, palatable at most.