Enshittification of LinkedIn on the March

I have watched for some time the LinkedIn coaches selling coaching to desperate LinkedIn users who want to get jobs or achieve “LinkedIn success,” whatever that might mean (probably very little).

I now find from my LinkedIn slop feed that there are coaches on LinkedIn selling coaching to help people get work on, of all places, the click-work platform Upwork.

I am not surprised to see that numerous posts on LinkedIn to sell Upwork coaching are from people in places like Nigeria, Ghana, and Pakistan, which are probably home to many power users of click-work platforms like Upwork.

The proliferation of these Upwork coaching ads on LinkedIn says speaks about not only the people who use Upwork, but also about the progressive enshittification of the platform LinkedIn itself. LinkedIn was never a good place for freelancers to find meaningful work, and now it is acting to promote coaching for users of an even less meaningful platform.

The end is near. No, wait, the end is not near. I think we might be seeing the end already, but these platforms are supported by countless desperate users trying to survive.

Author: William Lise

Long-term (49-plus years) resident of Japan. Former electrical engineer and have been translating and interpreting for over four decades.