I'm starting to think LEGO is evil - <AUTHOR> http://sinker.tumblr.com/post/14267087602/im-starting-to-think-lego-is-evil <comment><USER3> When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task.

For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music?

It's easy to blame the companies -- but in reality it's very hard for a single company to change the macro culture that informs their product decisions. If you want to find the root cause, look at the users and ask why they demand the products they do. In this case: "why are so few parents buying Legos for their girls?" or "why do girls feel a stigma about playing with Legos?"

<comment><USER4> "When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth."

I think Steve has the answer here. But I am just as frustrated as you are.

<comment><USER5> I've always wondered if Steve was inspired by the movie "Network":

"We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in _illusions_ , man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even _think_ like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! _WE_ are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF..."

I highly recommend it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(film)>

<comment><USER6> The second episode of Charlie Brooker's current Black Mirror series of scifi dramas contains elements of Network, but set in a future dystopia where people sort of live inside an ipad that's stuck running farmville. It's a lot better than I've just made it sound. In fact, it's incredible, and terrifying.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Black_Mirror_...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Black_Mirror_\(TV_series\))

Also highly recommended.

To be honest the whole thing should be at the top of HN, but I doubt it would get upvoted. Maybe we need a summarising blog post...

<comment><USER7> I watched this last night, really good viewing. Especially poignant was the ending where the protagonist traded in his morals for a comfortable life and fame. It evoked feelings of disappointment that he was so cheaply bought off, the same kind of disappointment i felt at the end of 1984 when Winston was re- educated.

In some ways it was a case of reductio ad absurdum, but the more you look how popular culture is evolving the more it seems like a logical, yet depressing, conclusion - people's constant pre-occupation with celebrity culture and seeking fame even if it means selling themselves cheaply. I also enjoyed how it captured how people like Simon Cowell are exploitative and manipulative when it comes to shows like the X factor, it's audience and it's contestants.

The big irony was that i watched it online, meaning the show was interspersed with adverts which i could not skip. Made me laugh, i expect Charlie Brooker foresaw this as to further solidify his vision

<comment><USER8> I know this isn't a movie forum, but typically, when discussing movies, one doesn't start off with a spoiler of the ending.

Thanks a ton. :-\

<comment><USER7> Oops! It's not really a twist or anything, but yeah that was a bit of a faux pas. Pardon my stupidity!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a girl geek who grew up on Legos, this makes me really, really sad.

From the NPR article linked to from the article above: "Lego also consciously aimed for boy customers when it embarked on its stunning turnaround. Boys were easier to sell to than girls."

 _headsmash_

"The new Lego girl minifigures have names like Stephanie, Olivia, and Emma, and the building sets include a veterinary clinic, a hairdressing salon, a horse academy and a clinic."

We need more women scientists, girl geeks, etc. And for every person who loves to say "But boys and girls are just _different!_ ", there's a stunning example of sexist stereotypes embedded in the very things we buy our kids because our generation cherished them too...

(By the way, if you ever want a conclusive argument that girls being raised to love pink and hate math is societal, not genetic, read "Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference". It's pretty eye- opening, and has plenty of proof to back up its assertions.)

<comment><USER10> _(By the way, if you ever want a conclusive argument that girls being raised to love pink and hate math is societal_

The most staggering thing about these assumptions is not merely how they contradict current scientific understanding, but they contradict _reality_. _Pink used to be a boys' color: the idea of pink as "girly" didn't exist 100 years ago._ Ironically, this commonly-given-example is itself a fantastic example of how wrong such assumptions about gender differences actually are.

It's rather laughable -- and sad -- how almost every single "scientific study" (often evolutionary psychology, a popular pseudoscience) claiming such absurd biological gender differences _just happens_ to support 1950s stereotypical American gender roles, as opposed to gender roles anywhere else in history, anywhere else in the world.

The reality is that the biological differences are negligible in most regards, at least mentally -- claiming "girls naturally prefer pink" is just as absurd as insisting that blacks are genetically predisposed to like playing basketball. It denies the vastly greater importance of societal and cultural effects, dumps blame for problems -- such as gender bias in STEMS -- on biology instead of humans, and is pretty much flat-out sexist.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Thank you for your post! That's basically exactly what the book I recommended says, except she goes into 200+ pages of detail about it (with much supporting evidence.)

<comment><USER10> It is -- and that book should be required reading for anyone making any comment on this subject. It's shocking how often I see posts, especially on Hacker News, that take _for granted_ "gender differences" that have been proven not to exist! And often by self-proclaimed scientists and skeptics, no less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm having trouble understanding the backlash against the new Lego for girls initiative. As the father of a couple of pre-school girls, I'm loving the new initiative.

It appears to consist of 3 things:

\- realistic looking minifigs. Not square and not oversexed.

\- additional brick colors, and not just pink.

\- sets not based on movie tie-ins, but in real-world locations like an inventor's workshop, a café, an animal hospital and a beauty salon

These look like the perfect toys for young girls -- they encourage both creativity and role-playing. And as the latest science-based parenting books (Welcome to Your Child's Brain, etc) tell you, role-playing is the best way to develop self-control, which is the most valuable skill that can be imparted into a pre-schooler by a parent.

Sure, they're girly. So what? I want my girls to grow up proud to be girls, and aware that they can be whatever they want to be.

But to my mind, they seem better than most of the "boy" Lego sets out there, which appear to be much less repurposable, and are blatant commercial tie-ins or weapons of war.

<comment><USER12> It's the hard gender division. Why are there "girl legos," and "boy legos"? And it also seems like they're offering the same "girl themed" play sets that all the other toys offer, except you have to put it together first. Who plays with lego that way?

<comment><USER13> I think my 4 year old girl is going to greatly prefer their new legos. Right now, she plays with Duplos, and all is well. However, I can see a day when legos are "too boy". That's just what they reported happening in the Lego studies. Duplo works, and then the girls doen't make the transition to regular lego.

We have an older boy as well, and so our house has every lego you can imagine, plus lots of really cool vehicles, trucks, etc. Our daughter never goes near them. If this can make them more attractive to her, that's fantastic.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. We have a 9yo boy, and twin 2 yo girls. So we have all the lego stuff, plus lego designer on the computer, etc. The girls LOVE getting into their brother's stuff, and one of them sleeps with a toy garbage truck (she also sleeps with a bus pass, a collection of stuffed puppies, and an Olivia board book...) It may be because I'm interested in this stuff, too, because they're too young to have "girl" vs "boy" divisions, or because they're just different. It's hard to tell. I do know that when I was a girl, I loved lego, and had a huge collection of matchbox cars (also my little ponies...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The top items on my daughter's (she's 9) Christmas list this year are the LEGO Space Center and LEGO Space Shuttle, both from the City collection. Other items on the list included some of the Alien Conquest sets.

The kid's got a ton of LEGO. The last thing she needs is more LEGO, but it's hands-down her favorite toy. She builds the sets and will play with/admire them for a while, then eventually all of the pieces get dumped into the Giant Bucket of LEGO, which is a huge 30gal bucket overflowing with bricks from sets we've bought her, and from my childhood and my husband's childhood (though oddly lacking in wheels). _That's_ the beauty of LEGO and that huge mish-mash of a dozen sets works for any gender.

Maybe it's the fact that I already have a geek child who's into geek things (She's also getting a D&D red box this Christmas, per her request), but the marketing doesn't seem to have any effect on her. She just sees sets that she thinks looks cool and wants to buy them. I don't think that list would include veterinary clinics and pet spas from this new pinkification effort, either.... but even if it does, so what? You still end up with a bucket of mixed pieces for hours of endless, free-form creativity and building.

I do think that there are more sets available these days that are targeted toward boys, but I don't know that it's come at the expense of other options. You can still buy basic brick sets. There are still several items in the City series that aren't "cops and robbers" and things like the Mars Mission and Pharaoh's sets, or even the Harry Potter sets are no more boy-centric than the old LEGO space stuff used to be.

</comment><comment><USER15> _Look: I will fully admit that these sets are really, really cool. My son is getting a gigantic Millenium Falcon set from Santa this year (DON'T TELL) and both my wife and I are excited to play with it too.

But it's a model kit. We will put it together once and we will play with it a lot and that will be that. It won't get remixed, won't get hacked. Eventually it'll come apart and be put away and not rebuilt because 1000 pieces is a pain in the ass._

This doesn't make any sense to me. Why on earth wouldn't you mix those pieces in with the rest of the pieces you already have from sets you've already disassembled? Sure, the marketing is a little much these days but unless I am sadly mistaken all the pieces still fit together like they did 30 years ago.

<comment><USER16> I've noticed that some of new Lego sets have very specific pieces. Not really the kind you can mix and match between sets as in the 'old days'.

<comment><USER17> This kind of thing was popular during the LEGO "dark ages" in the early 2000s but has really died out as of late. The Millenium Falcon that's being referred to has very few, if any, unique parts. LEGO has really gone back to its roots in the past 2 or 3 years, especially with the AWESOME creator series.

<comment><USER18> The creator series _is_ very awesome. it's the only kind we buy for our girl.

<comment><USER19> Lego contraptions is the best though. Hard to find, not too many pieces. But gears, springs, and lots of flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> s/LEGO/toy manufacturers/

(There, I fixed it for you!)

The trend towards highly gendered media-tie in toys that are designed to generate follow-on sales opportunities for accessories rather than to encourage kids to develop their imagination through semi-structured but open- ended play nauseates me. I am doubtless betraying my personal bias here, but the corporate discovery that the quickest way to a parent's wallet is through their offspring is a bleakly exploitative example of market amorality; it may be legal, but is it decent?

<comment><USER21> BS @ trend.

Go back 50 years and it was dolls and toy guns. Nothing has changed, boys still like building and destroying, and girls still like caring about things and craft things.

You can try all you want to make boys play with dolls, and girls play at killing each other, but they won't in general, because it's not in their biological makeup to do so.

<comment><USER22> I think the point here is that Lego is fondly remembered as -- and maybe even _should_ be -- a gender-neutral toy. There was never anything inherently male or female about Legos. In fact, I remember playing with my younger sister often -- I'd be building a spaceship on one side, and she'd be putting together a house on the other.

The problem is that Lego has gotten away from being a gender-neutral toy and is now marketed specifically to boys. And the travesty is, they've dug themselves such a deep hole that the only way to get back any female users is to pander to their lowest common denominator.

<comment><USER23> It's not marketed specifically to boys though... Sure, some of the sets are obviously more male-oriented (perhaps even the majority), but there are also sets that are either specifically designed to appeal to girls, or which appeal more to girls for whatever reason.

This trend is really nothing new, either. More than 20 years ago I wanted the Lego spaceships, and my sister got pissed off at me for making wars against her happy little Lego town people. Even 20 years ago there were more sets that appealed to boys than girls, I'm reasonably sure.

We also had a pile of the plain old "gender-neutral" bricks, which either of us might have employed to augment our various constructions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here are some HN perspectives from 2009 (when Lego announced a large increase in profits (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768093>). The article is no longer available on Yahoo Finance, but can be found here (<http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/news9940.html>).

Branded, themed Lego sets simply sell really well and Lego is responding to the demand with increased capacity and more focus on these markets.

Here is a scenario of why it works: Visualize a parent and child walking down the toy aisle at a typical large retailer (e.g. Target, WalMart, ToysRUs, etc.). The shelves are full of dozens of single-focus, low cost, electronic toys that are flashy and are very appealing to kids. A big box of Lego bricks just doesn't provide the same instant gratification as a talking toy with a "demo" button. Although, the long-term value of the box of Lego bricks is clearly much higher, explaining that to a 4 year-old is very difficult as they are concurrently making a strong appeal for, an even cheaper, talking doll.

Lego has responded with purchasing shelf space in retailers for branded sets that offer instant gratification while also satisfying the parents need for a more creative toy. Regardless, most of the pieces from the branded sets end of in the "big box" of Legos :).

<comment><USER25> You've nailed it on the head. Virtually all criticisms of this nature can be summarized as "Humans often want things that aren't best for them." Unfortunately, putting anyone else in charge of people's preferences usually ends up being even worse than letting them decide for themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A bit OT, but a fun exercise: every time you see the word "millennium", count how many "n"s there are. The answer is "one" an astonishing amount of the time, even in professionally edited copy. In fact, as of this writing the Google search for "Millennium Falcon" brings up an Amazon ad for—you guessed it—a "Lego Millenium [sic] Falcon". (Full confession: Around 2000, I was mortified to discover that I, a card-carrying spelling Nazi, had been misspelling it for years.)

N.B. You can remember the right spelling by recalling that a _millennium_ is a thousand ( _mille_ ) years ( _anni_ ).

</comment><comment><USER26> Got one of the castle themed products for a friend. The LEGO approved story: "The Dragon Knights have captured the fair princess and locked her in their tower. The King's brave Knight sets forth to rescue her, but the tower is heavily fortified and well defended. Can he break through the iron gate and past the catapult to free her?"

I think my friend decided to retheme as an S&M brothel.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't think they're evil so much as just catering to modern society. Legos are from an era where way more people built, fixed, and tinkered with things. Nowadays what do you do when your computer, phone, dishwashers, tv, etc. breaks? Take it to get repaired or get a new one. No tinkering, no opening it up to see how it works before you throw it away, none of that. So rather than thinking Lego is to blame for this attitude, I think Lego is just following their market. And can you really blame a company for wanting to stay afloat instead of following a shrinking breed of people and a idealistic mindset into the grave?

</comment><comment><USER28> It's simple - universal construction kits don't do well in commercials targeted at children.

The very ad he's mentioning targets parents not children. Marketing for toys used to be targeted at parents.

But not anymore - there are cartoon TV stations airing all day, filled with commercials for shitty toys. Then the child sees these toys in stores and starts crying. Parent gives up and buys them. End of story.

<comment><USER29> Funny thing is, that's not new. When I was a kid, nearly all the cartoons I watched were basically just commercials for toys (G.I. Joe, He-man, Transformers, M-m-m-mask). Same for my little sisters (My Little Ponies, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Jem). Legos were the only toys that didn't tie-in to a movie or TV show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've actually had similar thoughts about Lego in the past. When I was younger I used to love playing with the generic "space" Legos or the generic "castle" legos. Looking back, it was great because those sets where generic enough that you could imagine your own story for them. You wouldn't just be building sets, you'd be building universes.

Much of that is lost with movie-themed Legos. If a kid sees Star Wars and then goes to get the Star Wars Lego set, then the Luke Skywalker figure will always be Luke Skywalker, and the Vader figure will always be Vader, and you'll always need a Millenium Falcon around to join the party. Media tie-ins seem to greatly restrict (though of course not totally destroy) the potential for a kid to make up his own adventure. The universe is already imagined for you; in a sense, you become a participant, not a creator.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is, unfortunately, part of a trend against "make" culture. While it does impact LEGO (the tie-in stuff is pretty useless and the LEGO city sets still have more wholesome brick sets that can be used in more than one fashion), it is going on across many facet of toy manufacturing.

Those of us who are parents of young children now may remember the days in school when they taught us basic programming as part of computer training (either logo or basic, for example) which put us on the path to learning how to get the computer to do stuff we wanted it to do instead of consuming pre- made stuff on it. In today's world, a large amount of what's offered to kids is stuff that tied in to TV shows or movies, with little interest in helping develop the next generation of makers.

Sadly, LEGO's initial downfall was because it try to keep on focusing on the makers and its resurgence was on the back of pre-made, pre-imagined tools: when a kid is given a star wars or harry potter set, he/she is now letting his/her imagination run wild but is constrained by the pre-established story lines set in place by Hollywood (because let's face it, the tie-ins are to movies, not books).

The sad part is that the long term impact of this may be that it creates grown-ups further down the line who will feel that laws like SOPA are OK.

<comment><USER32> I was thinking the other day how much I really miss GW-Basic. A relatively simple set of instructions that I used at age 10 or so to start simple programming. How do I teach a 10 year old to program now? Class instantiation? Grab a bunch of libraries off the internet and put them together?

Really sad that people don't want to build things anymore. I recently fenced in my acre yard(no I don't live in SV, couldn't afford an acre over there). Six foot privacy fence. Took me months. Everybody thought I was crazy, including the guy next door who makes a living doing commercial construction. My wife's friends thought she was crazy. They would never let their husbands keep construction materials around that long. But I remember my dad building a fence years ago when I was a kid so it just seemed natural I would do it as well.

<comment><USER19> I am starting my son with perl and C. Today is his 8th birthday.

Why perl and C?

1) Perl is very good at ad hoc programming, and it;s a very good language for learning very basic things.....

2) C is simple language for very basic stuff, but it is exacting and makes you think like a programmer.

Once he gets half-way decent with simple things in Perl, he's ready for Lego Mindstorms ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think the key is to remind you kids that once you've built something according to the instructions and you're bored, it's time to take it apart and build something else. I remember playing with a lot of LEGO kits when I was a kid, and I always did this. It's true that, like coloring books, building from kits discourages creativity. But that's easy to fix with something called parenting. Let the instructions be an inspiration, not a prescription.

(And, it's not a bad skill to be able to follow instructions. I hear people on forums like HN complaining about how difficult it is to build IKEA furniture. If they played with LEGO when they were a kid, they'd probably be able to build their bookshelf too :)

<comment><USER34> Take a look at modern Lego kits - this is no longer really possible. Half of the pieces are now completely custom pieces that will only ever fit in one way. Gone are the Lego kits where just about all the pieces will recycle into your future creations.

<comment><USER35> That's complete and utter bullshit.

Stuff like that used to happen (the dark late 90s and early 2000s) but not anymore. And even during that time (which was during my childhood) I always found a cool new way to use the special pieces. I actually always loved having special pieces I could repurpose in some way.

This meme needs to die. It's not based in fact.

Case in point: <http://city.lego.com/de-DE/Products/Default.aspx#4643>

That big windshield is awesome. I could make a big fire truck with it or other kinds of vehicles, maybe integrate it into a building.

Oh, and Lego has tons of sets that are just awesome and pretty much only made from normal bricks. Take this awesome house: <http://creator.lego.com/de- DE/products/default.aspx#5771>

Lego has diversified their product line. That means you can get more, well, normal toys. But they are still selling as much classic Lego stuff as they always have.

<comment><USER36> Wow, you have strong feelings about Lego, don't you?

<comment><USER35> I do have strong feeling about this particular meme – but I really should have toned down my writing a bit. Ah, well, you can't always find the right words.

<comment><USER36> You and me both!

I agree that the new Lego pieces get a bad rap; my kids have done ridiculous things with them; in fact, I'm not sure they've ever actually built the thing the box told them to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Before you complain, you can still get a big bag of Lego:

<http://shop.lego.com/en-DK/LEGO-Basic-Bricks-Large-5623>

I say still, because it is a family business and it seems those who would have gone on to run it have left the family tradition and are now much more interested in enjoying their wealth (which is considerable, in that they are one of the richest families in Denmark).

They would be the fourth generation, so I guess it was bound to happen. At least my children should be able to cut their teeth on Legos.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's not Lego that's "highly-problematic". They're simply trying to give the kids(parents?) of today what they want.

If you follow the NPR article linked in the article, you'll see that Lego clearly did their homework before embarking on this new line. In light of this, I think it's odd for them to be accused of reinforcing stereotypes when their research showed that _this is how (most) girls like to play_.

I do think it's sad that we now have 'boy-lego' and 'girl-lego', but (for the moment), that appears to be appropriate for the world we live in. Maybe some of those girls will want to do more than just play with handbrushes and handbags and check out the Technics or Mindstorms. Who knows.

NPR article: [http://www.npr.org/2011/12/15/143724644/ith-new-toys-lego- ho...](http://www.npr.org/2011/12/15/143724644/ith-new-toys-lego-hopes-to- build-girls-market)

LEGO product lines: <http://www.lego.com/en-us/products/default.aspx>

<comment><USER38> Here's the article (Businessweek) amirmc is referring to:

[http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/lego-is-for- gir...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/magazine/lego-is-for- girls-12142011.html)

<comment><USER39> I read through this article the other day and it does a great job of showing the position Lego has worked themselves into and how they're trying to right the ship.

I think it is commendable that they are trying to go after the girl market with something other than princesses. I didn't like the new 'ladyfigs' at all at first either but then again, I was a little boy and I loved the minifigs. The part about boys playing with minifies in the third person but girls wanting to play in the first person really resonated with me. I never pretended that I was a minifig. If that's what I wanted to do, they should have had more individual personality. Like what they came up with.

I think the fact that they are willing to break from tradition to capture this market is a good thing. The fact that it doesn't appeal to me is probably also a sign they're doing it right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm an equal-opportunity lego distributor. Girls as well as Boys get just one kind of toy from me: Lego. Duplo for the urchins, 'regular' for 4 to 8's and technic for the older ones. Never seen a kid turn it down, whatever age or gender. For a lark I gave a bunch of it to some adults, claiming that I'd forgotten their birth dates. They ended up being at least as happy as the kids.

I've never given any 'themed' lego, just the plain stuff, no minifigs or other non constructive bits.

Lego is what made me see the power of building using re-usable blocks, the best possible primer for becoming a programmer that I am aware of outside of maths (and you typically don't start math beyond counting when you're a toddler).

</comment><comment><USER41> Whomever decided to kill Space Legos needs to be shot into orbit.

The model kits all suck. I went and bought $15 tubs of the wall of bricks recently and my kids get far more use from those random pieces than they do kits.

<comment><USER42> I hear ya. Space Legos were the first sets I really came to love. Although, I got pissed back _then_ because of those odd specially-formed pieces like the engines. NOW, it seems 80% of a lego kit is special pieces.

<comment><USER43> I've heard this complaint for years and years, but we're living in a golden age for non-specially-formed pieces. You can buy the builder sets, order arbitrary quantities of pieces online, or just buy by the bucket at Lego stores (that's what I do).

<comment><USER42> What do you think about Bionicle? I can't even consider that stuff to be LEGO.

<comment><USER43> I can't get in to Bionicle, but I'm not offended that it exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is not a new development. Lego has had sets loudly targeting girls (or better: stereotypes about girls) since 1991. Lego Paradisa set where sold all through the 90s. Here is the Poolside Paradiese from 1992: <http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=6416-1>

The Lego Belville sets are similar and are still sold today. Here is the Pony Trekking set from 1997: <http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=5854-1>

It's possible to go even further back in time for more stunning displays of sexism. In 1971 many sets had photos of kids on them. There was a boy pushing a truck or putting together a car. Now guess what the only sets with girls on them were. A kitchen and a living room: <http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=261-4>

All that does't make it better. Yes, this is a problem that has to be remedied. But it is not a recent development.

In general I have to say that Lego improved massively since the dark ages (late 90s and early 2000s). I was just looking at some new Lego Creator sets and blown away by them. You couldn't get cool stuff like that during my (late) childhood (i.e. late 90s and early 2000s). I still loved the heck out of Lego during my childhood but today's sets are just cooler.

</comment><comment><USER44> That cops-and-robbers LEGO advent calendar _is_ pretty weird.

I still have this guy hanging on my tree: <http://www.1000steine.com/brickset/images/1627-1.jpg>

<comment><USER45> I remember that guy! But I think he got assimilated into the large box of LEGO in my parents' basement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> My daughter loves legos and seems to really love the Harry Potter legos. I do agree that getting generic legos instead of boy centric seems more challenging but they are out there.

What I really connected with more in this article was the advent calendar with the cops and robbers. My wife told me a while back, "I got this cool lego advent calendar online". I was like, "cool!". Then I saw this cops and robbers theme and I told her, "Is this really what Christmas is about in the US now? <santa voice>Hey kids! Be careful out there as there are people that want to break into your house and steal your stuff!</santa voice>"

I know, I know... If I don't like it then don't buy it. I agree. I still think it's a strange advent calendar even though my son actually likes it.

<comment><USER47> The cops and robbers theme is really just a play on the good v. evil theme that permeates most childrens books, stories, movies, etc.

I think it's pretty benign and just part of the process of helping kids make sense of the world through play and storytelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> _" But if they've become toys marketed to a single gender, then we're just reproducing the already awful gender imbalance in STEM education and employment."_

Why is it we never hear anyone decrying the 'awful gender imbalance' in Human Resources, Nursing and Teaching?

<comment><USER49> Because when women dominate the workplace, it's "The End of Men" ([http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the- end-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of- men/8135/)) and reason for smug, thinly-veiled gloating. Also, men can't be teachers because we're all pedophiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> LEGO is very closed source. I'm fixing that with my <http://bitbeam.org> project. It's an open source hardware Lego Technic compatible building toy that you can manufacture yourself. (I lasercut my bitbeams at TechShop in San Francisco.) My long term plan is to make a bitbeam-based CNC milling machine that can make more beams. I won't just sell the "bricks", I'll open source and sell the machines that make the bricks. Opening up the manufacturing process is something I suspect LEGO would never do. Also, I'd like to see a fully open source equivalent to Mindstorms - Arduino for the electronics and Bitbeam for the mechanics.

</comment><comment><USER51> I don't get it.

You complain that a 5000 piece lego set is movie themed, when the only thing movie themed are the minifigs and the box it came in.

As kids every single lego set we had was built into the "model" precisely once, and then dumped in with the rest of the lego. We kept the instructions, but would never rebuild the original set. That's hardly the point of Lego.

As an adult I have a huge collection of Star Wars lego sets, including the Imperial Star Destroyer and Death Star. When my son is old enough (he's not yet 3), they'll get dismantled and put in a bucket all together. From that day on they WILL be generic lego pieces. The fact that they came in a Star Wars box is then irrelevant.

<comment><USER52> Except so many of those pieces are not generic. There's dozens of color and shape specific pieces in there. Things that will _never_ go on anything else.

That said, you can still buy generic lego boxes.

<comment><USER51> No, actually. These days there are very few non-generic pieces. If we're talking bionicles, then yes. But 99% of pieces in any modern set (branded or otherwise) are generic. The exception is usually things like fighter windshields (if they're called that in space?).

e.g. The Star Destroyer engines are actually wheels presumably borrowed from some other set. The Death Star as far as I can tell has no "special" pieces, nor the AT-AT, AT-ST or X-wing. The millenium falcon has a few special bits, but even they look repurposed from some other set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is not new. When I was growing up with lego in the early 80s, there was a line of lego marketed at girls which were sets of lego that you made jewelery with.

Also, what nonsense is this that you won't make anything with the millenium falcon because 1000 pieces is too many? What garbage. How can lego possibly fix the issue that you refuse to make anything else with a set with lots of pieces?

Anyway, lego sets aren't atomic - buy a lego set, play with it, then mix it with your other stuff. You've just waxed lyrical about an ad where you can 'just make stuff', right after refusing to do so with a large set, with no real reason given.

</comment><comment><USER54> My daughter is 4. She loves LEGOs. She also loves bugs, snakes, sharks, dinosaurs, Star Wars, her train set, Barbies, princesses, fairies, puppies, and sneaking into her grandma's makeup.

My son is 11 months old. He's taken a liking to cars and balls, but he also loves his sister's Barbies. Particularly, he likes to pull their hair, but I think he's drawn to the (ahem, slight) humanness they possess. They look friendly.

Separating "boys' toys" from "girls' toys" is pretty much nonsense. Of course, older boys aren't going to want to play with Barbies. Not necessarily because they wouldn't enjoy it, but because they are marketed to girls, and, most importantly, they would get made fun of for doing so. Were it socially acceptable for boys to play with Barbies, I promise they would.

Realize that when we're shopping for toys for my daughter, the toy store is twice as big for her, because she's not aware that she isn't supposed to like action figures and rc cars.

I think the genderizing of colors is just crazy. What makes pink a "girl's color" and blue a "boy's color" ? I'm convinced it's just marking influence. Most girls' clothes are pinks and purples, and similar "girly" colors. With that, most of what my daughter wears is pink or purple. Of course she loves the colors; we drape her in them daily. She chose blue, green, and red for her bedroom, and we let her do that, instead of saying "No, no, those colors are for boys."

</comment><comment><USER55> I disagree. I think, with many of the new sets, a whole class of new pieces were explored.

As a kid, the only cars I really remember were the ones with the small base (3x4 with an elevated segment for the tiny wheels). When I rediscovered legos, I noticed that many sets have larger base plates (for larger vehicles) -- width 6 stubs.

And the pick-a-brick are surprisingly deep in terms of shapes and sizes (I definitely don't remember the curved translucent pieces designed to emulate glass).

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't know how to fix this for the whole society, but it is possible to fix this for your daughter: Go and buy a generic Lego set, for example [http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_355233462_11?ie=UTF8...](http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_355233462_11?ie=UTF8&node=676116011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-4&pf_rd_r=0RQYV84C0HDR52FEB66E&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1337709102&pf_rd_i=236510011)

The same rule applies for yours nieces. And for the (female) friends of your children (If you really want to look more normal, you can buy the "pink" box.).

My 9 years old daughter has:

* Her own chemistry set

* An "X-100" microscopy (It is really of my wife.)

* A Meccano-like metalic cosnstruction set.

* A Snap Circuits Jr electronic Set.

And this year, one of her "Christmas" present is an Arduinos Sparkfun Professional Inventor's Kit, because she wants to make a robot, but she didn't want a robot kit. (I still don't know we will complete the robot, but the idea is to start with something simple and iterate.)

If you think that it is important to give your daughter a good scientific formation (or if you think that it is the only sensible way to raise a children), you can fight back.

To see another example, go to the Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show! : <http://sylviashow.com/>

</comment><comment><USER57> Just stop buying lego and start buying K-nex instead.

They are almost infinitely better. They are _incredibly_ open ended, and can be used to build some very complex stuff.

<comment><USER58> definitely agree with that. k'nex is way more creative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I don't besmirch LEGO for doing what is an entirely rational for them: design products whose pieces, like puzzle pieces, don't have much versatility outside the context of that playset, leading children to tire of them quickly and want a new set.

Of course, LEGO still sells the general-purpose sets with instruction books to show you how to construct dozens of different buildings/vehicles/etc. My son prefers those, but every kid is different.

The No Girls Allowed theme is pretty easy to explain: mass-market films of the type that will have product tie-ins are almost universally aimed at boys, and LEGO is simply downstream from that trend.

There are toys that give kids' imaginations some exercise, and there are those that, like video games and Harry Potter LEGO sets, don't deliver quite the same workout. It's up to you to cultivate in your child a healthy appetite for the former.

EDIT: I would add that the Toy Story movies do a good job of echoing the nostalgia that adults feel for those older, simpler toys. My son and my affection for those movies has in some way conditioned us to stretch our imaginations and breathe new life into old toys.

</comment><comment><USER60> I've been a Lego fan for, what, 45, 50 years? I've never in that time bought a single "kit" from them. You buy bricks. And other parts. But kits? Why would I want to build someone else's design. The whole idea behind Lego, as I've understood since I was 5 years old, is that you make your own cool stuff.

I've built space ships and air planes and monsters. I think I even built a Starship Enterprise once. But designing the things yourself is part of the process.

When my nieces were prime Lego age, at the advice of their mother, I did look at some kits, but was horrified at the prices. The bricks are pricy enough. I converted my money into tubs of bulk bricks. You can _never_ have enough bricks.

(Now I did make some Tinker-Toy machines from company plans, but only enough to understand the principle. I then adapted them to my own nefarious purposes. I did the same with balsa wood flying model airplanes later.)

</comment><comment><USER45> I was also dismayed by their focus on movie tie-ins and set-specific pieces, but I really like the LEGO landmark/architecture series:

<http://architecture.lego.com/en-us/products/>

They're built with pretty much all standard pieces (though not necessarily standard colors).

<comment><USER11> Christmas present score! Now I have a Christmas present idea for my wife to compliment the far-too-functional present already got her!

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'd like to make a point that applies to some (but by no means all) of the comments above. Outrage isn't a very useful emotion. It's become the default emotion for things like this because politicians like to keep people in a state of frothy indignation. That's carried over to the rest of our culture but it's not a good thing.

Resolve is a much better emotion than outrage. What can I do to encourage better behavior? Buying good LEGO sets as presents for children and evangelizing about LEGO to friends spring immediately to mind. Or maybe getting involved with the 3D printing movement.

In summary, I'm suspicious that alternating between "intellectual curiosity" and "resolving to take action" is a much better way of reading articles on the internet than the alternate strategy of alternating intellectual curiosity and outrage.

</comment><comment><USER62> The BrikCrate has changed how my kids approach Lego. It was completely "build the set, forget about it" prior to installing it. Now they build like crazy in free form. <http://www.brikcrate.com/>

Our daughter enjoys building too.

<comment><USER12> We just have three enormous rubbermaid bins with lids. Half the fun is searching for the right piece, and possibly finding an old lollypop stuck to it. The sound of kid hands pawing through a vat of legos is awesome.

<comment><USER63> I'm waiting for the day I have enough to do a Scrooge McDuck and swim through mine :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> So I played the Lego board game series Heroica recently and at first I thought it was brilliant. It's pretty much a simplified version of D&D where you build the map with Legos. Then at the end I realized that the game-play pieces were set specific and you couldn't do what I thought was the point.

What I thought was that you could use any lego piece you want and add it to the set and use any lego figure and add it to the set and simply follow the same gameplay mechanics to a map limited only by your imagination. Let's play Heroica with Harry Potter pieces. Nope can't do that. You have to purchase their overpriced sets and only play what the sets let you do.

Looks like they're just looking for cash based off of numbers. Bummer.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think he forgot you can now order whatever LEGO piece you are looking for online.

So basically LEGO tries to sell to people who will not hack on the LEGO with very cool models but provides formidable tools if you want to hack your own LEGO.

You can even submit your own models if I'm correct.

<comment><USER66> Yeah, LEGO's CAD software lets you design models and then order all of the requisite parts[1]. I haven't used it yet, it's a really cool idea.

So there are unfortunate movie-themed prefab kits for the masses, and powerful design software for creative folks. LEGO still sells bulk quantities of classic bricks, you just have to look a bit.

1\. <http://ldd.lego.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I've been extremely sad the past 5 years with lego. I graduated college in 2006 and when I got a real job I thought that for Christmas I would be getting my niece and nephew legos. I loved them growing up (technic for the win!) and wanted to get them started on this obsession as well. But try as I might the trend that I saw start when I was 10 or 12 has continued to almost completely corrupt what I recall lego as being. No longer is it a where you get to imagine and design, and then play, all the "work" of design and imagination has been removed leaving only the "play". That's all kids want right, to play? Aw well, at least I got to have some good times.

</comment><comment><USER68> Side note but the ultimate evil present for parents of small kids is to buy the kid a Playmobil Castle for Christmas - [http://www.amazon.com/Lion- Knights-Castle-by-Playmobil/dp/B0...](http://www.amazon.com/Lion-Knights- Castle-by-Playmobil/dp/B003AQBWCG/)

As a parent that spent over 16 hours assembling one last Christmas then watching it disintegrate again, the "joy" this gift brings cannot be described. A great present if you have a brother or sister with kids you feel compelled to annoy.

<comment><USER69> Ah, but remember this castle? [http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jX9QklC3G4E/TIRfrl9uVRI/AAAAAAAADK...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_jX9QklC3G4E/TIRfrl9uVRI/AAAAAAAADK4/0uiWlR8TNBk/s400/complete- vintage-fisher-price-little-people-castle-993_170521510950.jpg)

That was one really great toy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> > We will put it together once and we will play with it a lot and that will be > that. It won't get remixed, won't get hacked.

My kids have gotten their share of Star Wars and Harry Potter themed Lego over the years, and in every case the original set was eventually taken apart - usually bit by bit in a kind of salvage operation for needed parts - <USER2> incorporated into the Lego bin. Once the pieces go into general circulation, they're used to build an arbitrary collection of original ships, buildings and so on.

</comment><comment><USER71> I just bought a couple of the Builders of Tomorrow Set #6177. All regular pieces, no tie-in or specialist parts. Expand with a couple of specific sets for the minifigs or custom pieces and you are set. If you are lucky enough to live near a Lego store you can also expand the collection using the wall of bricks.

I've never liked the Lego kits (even as a kid) for the reasons already mentioned. You build them once and then the (building) creativity is gone. Give me a pile of 4x2 bricks any day.

</comment><comment><USER72> My daughter grew up with LEGO and still plays with them. She doesn't need pink or purple blocks or over-sized female figures. All she wants different is a few female minifigs once in a while. I don't think there is a single one in either advent calendar. There are almost none anymore except Hermione in the Harry Potter licensed sets. Somewhat ironically, one of the few we have is the female doctor from last season's FIRST LEGO League competition set.

</comment><comment><USER73> While I vastly prefer the open-ended building blocks to the themed sets, I did like the semi-generic Lego space theme as a child. Also very cool were Tente, a Spanish space themed building kit series... they were very futurist and stylish: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tente_(Toys)>

The more open ended toys clearly have an advantage in terms of creativity, and most children have creativity to spare.

<comment><USER74> Ahh Tente! Brings back memories. I thought that Tente had more specialized pieces than Lego.

<comment><USER73> Yes, they were more specialized. Still better than a 'kit' though, in terms of creativity.

I think I still have all my Tente, sure would be fun to pull 'em out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Lego's patent on the basic block design has run out so it's actually a pretty smart strategy of Lego to move to licensed properties over the last decade - what else could they do? I've already seen some Hello Kitty "minifigs" with Lego compatible blocks, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/expired-patent-of-the- day-l...](http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/expired-patent-of-the-day- lego.html)

</comment><comment><USER76> I buy legos 1-2 a year for my four girls, I never get anything with themes tho.

Only basic blocks and let their skills do the rest, you'd be amazed what they can do.

</comment><comment><USER77> Am I the only one who would love to have a real, life-size set of Legos, big enough to build an actual dwelling? That would be a dream come true.

</comment><comment><USER78> Buy the right thing for your daughter, that you think will influence her in the right way? How come the responsibility to raise a child lies not in the parents anymore, but rather in companys and what they want to sell to them. Nothing is stopping you from dumping a big pile of mixed LEGO pieces in her room for christmas.

</comment><comment><USER79> They've also got the 'Creator' line which is more of what I traditionally think of Lego.

So, when I bought a set that's the one I chose. Now, I did have to wade through the other 30 brands to find it, but I was happy they still had at least one choice.

Now more people should buy these if the market wants it - but I'll agree these aren't marketed enough.

</comment><comment><USER74> Oh, BTW, I just had to share this guy's work:

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshal-banana/>

Especially his sand crawler. I really liked that

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshal- banana/sets/72157626809...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/marshal- banana/sets/72157626809606992/)

</comment><comment><USER80> I Made Things with LEGO blocks growing up. I loved the kits and the space themes. But I would always end up creating my own spaceship.

My young sisters build… but they mostly just build very simple props and then play with the LEGO people like dolls, inventing dramas and friendships and the like.

It's the same set of LEGO bricks I used.

Is it evil to recognize this?

</comment><comment><USER81> This is offensive, I will just have to stick with my computer engineer barbie instead: [http://gizmodo.com/5470587/computer-engineer-barbie-has-a- ph...](http://gizmodo.com/5470587/computer-engineer-barbie-has-a-phd-in-fun- and-breaking-down-stereotypes)

</comment><comment><USER82> For the most amazing building toy with great hackability, I highly recommend Uberstix - you can build planes that fly, boats that sail, robots, buildings, dynamic systems, catapults etc etc: <http://www.uberstix.com/>

</comment><comment><USER83> _"With New Toys, Lego Hopes To Build Girls Market."_

That, right there, is the problem. The people making the toys don't find value in making children happy or inspiring them to be creative/innovative; when all is said and done, girls are just another market.

</comment><comment><USER84> <sarcasm> Wait...a toy that is oriented primarily towards boys? It must be evil! </sarcasm> In that case, Barbie is evil, GI Joe is evil, Transformers are evil, My Little Pony is evil, etc...

<comment><USER85> Yes, a toy that teaches bad things is evil.

Bad things including: "You are a boy, you must be tough and strong" or "You are a girl you must be pretty and not good at maths"

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> I feel the need to point out the obvious. It's LEGO not LEGOS or legos.

<comment><USER47> Pet peeve number 1 for me.

There is no plural. 'Mum gave me a LEGO set' 'I want to go and play with my LEGO' 'I have a big tub full of LEGO pieces'

This was the official statement by the company: "LEGO® is a brand name that is very special to all of us in the LEGO Group Companies. We would sincerely appreciate your help in keeping it special by referring to our bricks as "LEGO Bricks or Toys" and not just "LEGOS". By doing so, you will be helping to protect and preserve a brand that stands for quality the world over."

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> If you want random bricks or just don't care to spend a fortune, look for used Lego and Duplo (big Legos) and just run it through the dish washer.

</comment><comment><USER88> What I'm struggling to understand is, why are they releasing these new style girly minifigs?

I always thought Lego was supposed to be gender agnostic

</comment><comment><USER89> I think you're confusing 'evil' with 'takes reasonable actions to ensure that it, as a company, is as profitable as possible'.

</comment><comment><USER90> Does LEGO have some sort of patent on "legos"? In other words are other companies allowed to build similar kits?

<comment><USER91> Any patent LEGO might have claimed on the basic brick design must have expired long ago.

MegaBlocks makes bricks that are advertised as compatible with LEGO bricks, but in my experience the tolerance is just a little bit off.

<comment><USER92> We have some Mega Blocks here and yes, they do work with Lego but they don't quite have as good a feel. Also there are some significant differences, like the flatter plates look to be half-height instead of 1/3 height which would cause problems if you intermix the two!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> What is wrong with Nerf? I love the new stuff they put out. I would have loved a Nerf Sword when I was a kid!

<comment><USER94> My questions is, what changed about Nerf? I'm not all that old, but most Nerf guns today just seem to be more powerful and more stylized versions of what they were making when I was a kid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> There are LEGO advent calendars!? That is so cool. I'm definitely getting one next year.

</comment><comment><USER96> LEGO's "Creationary" game always gives me pause. I suppose it's 3D "Pictionary" but the name makes me think it'll be about disproving evolution...

<http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Creationary-3844>

</comment><comment><USER97> I wonder if rep-rap can print good enough lego pieces?

</comment><comment><USER98> LEGO used to be a brand. Now it's more of a platform.

</comment><comment><USER99> in america this is called having a niche

</comment><comment><USER21> This is really really really boring.

Yes LEGO make LEGO "sets" that make a specific model. They also make a ton of generic building sets which teach you a ton of stuff. They even have walls of bricks in the shops where you can pick and choose which individual bricks you need.

If you don't like the specific building sets, don't buy those ones.

Every so often some people start moaning about how Lego is not the same as it was in their day. Stop whining.

(I've been a massive Lego fan for the last 30 years).

Oh and AWESOME NEWS! New DC sets coming in January! Now we can have Batman Lego sets again!!!!!

</comment><comment><USER100> Eh, they don't make 'me like they used to, right? I hardly think LEGO is promoting gender stereotypes. The new girl products and what they sell to boys aren't the problem but a symptom of a larger disease. Gender stereotypes are created within cultures and companies like LEGO don't really have an agenda like people would try to have us think. Instead they market what sells. The culture at large has put boys and girls into their respective roles and companies simply ride the trends. If boys were supposed to be in flowers and wear underwear on their heads then they'd make little Lego flower kits that came with little Lego men with underwear as hats. Companies have to look out for their share holders. If gender stereotypes are the norm then that's what they'll sell. If we, as a culture, change those stereotypes the companies will follow. It's great to be able to commend a company for taking the lead on such issues but we can hardly expect it. That change has to come from families first.

</comment><comment><USER101> two reactions:

1\. yes and after you buy that specific-model-guns-ships set you can (b) build anything you want with it; (b) build model put on shelf never touch (or play with it); (c) build model then tear it apart and use pieces to make something from your imagination, etc. there are no rules. there are both generic brick- like pieces and special-purpose pieces and they can be put together in literally millions of ways, and now you can even see and share photos on the web, both for ideas and showing off.

2\. girls really are different from boys, overall, and in the general case; I've lost track of the number of males I've known that like/liked LEGO and the number of girls/women that were like, " _meh_ "; and I've seen first-hand, with my own eyes, over and over again, that my young nieces LOVE to play with dolls and dresses and princesses and jewelry, whereas LEGO's and guns? _meh_

LEGO is like a shining beacon in a sea of sludge and noise, in terms of educational value for kids and long-term replayability into adulthood, compared to most other toys. Criticizing LEGO is a bit like criticizing Michael Jordan for missing some shots in a game. It's Michael Jordan, mmkay?

Instructions show you how to build what's on the box. You are not required to do that, nor are you even required to buy LEGO at all.</comment>


Multi-file wordcount – an exercise in concurrent Ruby - <AUTHOR> https://recurse.henrystanley.com/post/concurrent-ruby/ <comment><USER2> Hey despite the poor performance this post taught me a lot about Ruby. Thanks!

I did wonder.. doesn't readlines load the entire file into RAM? Would it be more performance to try, e.g.

File.open(filename).inject(0) { |c, line| c + 1 }</comment>


Python vs. Julia Observations - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/python-vs-julia-observations-e61ee667fa95 <comment><USER2> Those interested in the HN comments should read the 9 at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12340234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12340234) . The biggest objection was that it compared the bpython shell to Julia, and not the IPython/Jypter one.

The biggest thing I learned, and liked, about Julia is how `$app` expands correctly for the shell.</comment>


The Absurdity of LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> http://blog.42floors.com/absurdity-linkedin/ <comment><USER2> I can't believe people still use LinkedIn.

And when I say that, I am talking about the HN crowd. It's one thing to say "I can't believe people use IE6", but this is _tech-savvy_ people using a joke of a social media.

Guys, if you want to look professional, buy your own domain name. Something professional, like yourname.me, or clever like "yourna.me". Build your own web page with your own damn profile and don't leave control over a company on how you look on the web. Be in control of the first point of entry to your _identity_.

For god sake guys. LinkedIn has had so many security issues, so much scummy behaviour regarding spam, user retention etc... yet you are still blessing them with your presence. (Obviously this doesn't apply to those that don't)

PS: Use gandi.net as a registrar for your name. They offer a free ssl cert along with the domain (and support almost every tld) for added "professional- looking" value to your site. I am not affiliated with them, I just love Gandi.

Edit: I'm being called out for "living in my own bubble" it seems. Yet LinkedIn is the very definition of a bubble. I used to have a LinkedIn profile and from it all I got were the most awful recruiting experiences, and all of them through cold calls. Your own site with CV + portfolio + Github + contact details is a LOT better.

PS2: Downvote or not I don't care, but please reply if you disagree; I'd love to disagree even harder!

Edit 2: I'm starting to think there is correlation between finding LinkedIn useful and not having a Github profile. A lot of the points people are bringing up here are solved in a very similar way by Github (which is in many ways a social network). This does bring me back to my original point though, why use LinkedIn when you can use a company that isn't scummy and actually have your _real_ work experience on there and a link back to your personal website with more portfolio etc?

<comment><USER3> As a hiring manager, I expect candidates to have a LinkedIn profile that is up to date. A LinkedIn profile is a public copy of your resume; other people can see it and flag if you make inaccurate claims. I can also see how you're connected to me (it's a very rare web developer who isn't a few degrees away from me, mostly because of my time at Yahoo) and use those people to work out where you are in the industry, and get background information from them. Public recommendations are good (the skills endorsements list much less so).

If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, I assume you're either very junior, shady, or clueless, and none of those is good. [Edit: per comments below, you might have some deep principled reason for not using social networks. In this case my metric is wrong, but I'm okay with having a false negative once in a while.]

Expecting everyone to have and maintain their own domain probably isn't practical, but even for those that do, the discoverability of that domain is low: I don't search google to find developers, I search LinkedIn. That's what it's for, and it's really pretty good at it.

They do some really dumb UI stuff around privacy that is trivially worked around using Incognito. I wish they didn't, but it's not dumb enough to make me abandon the giant utility of the network as a whole.

[Update: I took this thread to Twitter and got a bunch of really cogent arguments, including that LinkedIn enables harrassment/stalking of marginalized groups. That's more than a few isolated people who don't like social networks or object to the dark pattern UI, that's a systemic flaw. So I'm going to change my hiring practices to take that into account. Thanks, everybody!]

<comment><USER4> I know I am not going to change your modus operandi, but I must publicly point out that I fully, absolutely, disagree with how you execute your hiring. If you were working for me, you'd soon be working for someone else.

Your approach is a minimal-effort Pareto principle based hiring. By eschewing any and all candidate information sources other than the market leader professional social network, you get access to a pool of 80% of the candidates with minimal effort. For you, it's great. For your company, it's passable. For the candidates, it's disgusting.

I know many professionals, top of their class, that do not maintain their LinkedIn profile. Some don't even have one (usually out of principle). You absentmindedly dismiss these 95th percentile professionals in the "junior, shady or clueless" category. It reeks of profiling, smells like laziness and must be called out as bad practice.

<comment><USER5> _> For you, it's great. For your company, it's passable. For the candidates, it's disgusting._

Not the OP and playing a bit of devil's advocate but why do I care what's best for candidates? If I'm able to hire the people I need then I don't really care if there's a group of developers that I'll never find.

That's a choice you make when you take your principled stand.

<comment><USER4> It's not central to the argument, because the OP's position is obviously suboptimal for the company. However, yours is an interesting view, and a point in my argument that does require clarification.

Current good management practices envision managing as optimizing company behavior for all company stakeholders. In past times, management optimized for shareholder profit. Optimizing for shareholder profit alone has been repeatedly proven not sustainable. It usually leads to very spectacular failures, which themselves cause the public notion that _all_ management is still shareholder-oriented. Not all companies are managed like this. Successful ones manage their relationship with all stakeholders. It is in this view that caring for candidates is important.

In this view, in order to maximize long term profit, you should aim to create positive effects on every individual or organization that somehow interfaces with your company. This is obviously theoretical, and impractical. Sometimes it is just not possible, and anyhow you have to give higher importance to central stakeholders (shareholders, customers, employees). However, when the cost is not too high, you should strive for positive impacts.

In hiring, the cost of reviewing non-standard resumes is not relevant. The cost of causing a bad impression on the random important candidate that you decline, or the cost of missing an excellent hire, is relevant. The OP's position is fundamentally wrong.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately, the OP's position is held, in varying forms, by many in this industry. How many have said they won't hire someone without a Github profile? Without Open Source contributions? Without a direct personal network connection? If they spent too long at $BIG_STODGY_COMPANY? I have come to the conclusion that most companies don't give a shit about candidates as long as they are getting enough. Hell, even some companies that bitch and moan about "talent shortages" seem to have their own Pareto principle bullshit getting in their way.

<comment><USER7> Well yes, all of those criteria are bad business, if taken as absolutes. They can all be _factors,_ for sure. But as absolute requirements, they just weed out good candidates.

> I have come to the conclusion that most companies don't give a shit about > candidates as long as they are getting enough. Hell, even some companies > that bitch and moan about "talent shortages" seem to have their own Pareto > principle bullshit getting in their way.

It sounds like a lot of the companies you've encountered have embraced irrational business practices. That can definitely happen. I'm not convinced it's the norm, though. And I'm sure that it _shouldn 't_ be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> LinkedIn seems to be changing, and I am not sure for the better.

Recently they stopped access to a whole bunch of CRM players to LinkedIn API. Only Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics are allowed now.

[http://www.zdnet.com/linkedout-crm-companies-squawk-over- lin...](http://www.zdnet.com/linkedout-crm-companies-squawk-over-linkedins- api-policies-7000028762/)

(Disclosure: Zoho CRM was one of the affected products - we offered to pay for their API access but no dice)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd rank LinkedIn number 2 after Godaddy in the list of Successful Shady Companies (list ranked by shadiness BTW). Their entire business model revolves around tricking the user into doing stuff that - if it was clearly explained - they would never want to do.

<comment><USER10> Their shadiness is not limited to usability dark patterns; I am fairly sure they're scraping people's contact lists from gmail and the like without consent via impersonation (have gmail open in one tab, linkedin in another...). Exactly how they're accomplishing that, I'd love to know -- Facebook is likely pulling the same trick.

<comment><USER11> That's a pretty wild claim; what observations have led you to this conclusion?

<comment><USER12> Hi have noticed this repeatedly as well. Under the "People you may know" section, I see names of people with whom I've emailed only 1 time, often many years ago. These are people with whom I have no relationship, and the only record of them in my life is a gmail email. This leads me to believe that LinkedIn is somehow accessing this data without my permission.

<comment><USER11> Actually, that makes perfect sense, with no need for exotic cross-tab scripting attacks.

That person may be in your address book, which you've never shared with LinkedIn, but you are in _their address book_ , which they clearly have shared.

<comment><USER13> Plausible for some, not others. I've seen LinkedIn suggest I connect to "people" that aren't people at all, but role addresses. E.g., reception@[my oral surgeon]. Others are email addresses that are ancient, 15 years old at least, or for domains that no longer exist.

No idea how they've gotten access to that, but I've never knowingly authorized a connection to my address books.

<comment><USER10> This is the behavior I have observed too. There are addresses that could not plausibly be gotten by any means other than unauthorized scraping of my mail or contacts.

The only other mechanism I can think of is that maybe they're getting them via Android or iPhone apps (not necessarily linkedin's app) with less-than-upfront disclosure of what the app's doing. Either way, it's slimy behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Linked in is a very strange world; maybe it's good for job seekers or recruiters, but I find that the most frequent interactions I have there are either recruiters contacting me for ridiculous jobs that I would never be interested in (and sometimes am not qualified for). The second most frequent type of interactions I have there are where people endorse me for various skills.

Inevitably, I get endorsed by people who have no knowledge of said skills: I'm not sure why a technology-phobic college admissions officer would endorse my skills in distributed software engineering, and what would be the value of such an endorsement?

<comment><USER15> > Inevitably, I get endorsed by people who have no knowledge of said skills: > I'm not sure why a technology-phobic college admissions officer would > endorse my skills in distributed software engineering, and what would be the > value of such an endorsement?

I have to agree. I've gotten so many endorsements from non-software engineers who I've never worked with for my apparent XML abilities. I literally don't know what to think about that.

<comment><USER16> > _I literally don 't know what to think about that._

The "endorsement" system is an utter joke. When it was implemented, "endorsing" people consisted of clicking on any and every little oval that was in front of the user. I bet _everyone_ here has been endorsed for _multiple_ things they are unassociated with.

The idea that someone thought that a real-life, personal "endorsement" could be recreated by clicking a button that half the population won't read is beyond me.

LinkedIn seems to be useful because it's hot (as in, everyone is there). But outside of that original, clever idea (a professional social network) it doesn't offer much outside of its network effect.

<comment><USER17> It's why I made sure "coffee" made it into my top 10 endorsements. Shows how seriously I take the the system ;-)

(BTW It's slipped to #9 now... if anybody wants to endorse me for coffee that would be lovely ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This absurdity is found all over the internet and it's the result of Google's crawling policy. You can do the same kind of thing with nytimes.com articles and other websites that want their context indexed by Google but at the same time restrict access to it. These absurdities are made and work because most people do not understand how to use the software they have.

<comment><USER19> I thought Google heavily penalised sites that made content available to the Google bot but firewalled content for everybody else?

<comment><USER18> I think there is a penalty for showing Googlebot something other than what people can see, but these sites all use tricks to get around it by allowing users to see the same thing as Googlebot in various circumstances. For example Quora has the ?share=1 URL variable. The Wall Street Journal allows users to read a limited number of articles for free if they clicked in from Google (tracked via a cookie). The New York Times allows free reads from anywhere for a limit, but also tracked via a cookie. LinkedIn blocks their registered users, which is probably the worse system ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> LinkedIn is probably my least favorite tech company. I have deleted my account (or whatever is the closest thing they allow, it might be called something like "unlink account") three times now over about two years. This was after attempting to unsubscribe from all emails but continuing to receive them.

The first two times I deleted my account, my account magically resurrected itself after I accidentally clicked a link to a LinkedIn page and my password manager automatically logged me in. Apparently logging in resurrects deleted accounts, no questions asked. After the second time, I wisened up and removed all my LinkedIn cookies and disabled my password manager for the domain, then deleted my account for the third time.

That had worked for a long time, until just a few days ago, when I received a random LinkedIn newsletter out of the blue. This was disturbing. I clicked the Unsubscribe link, which asked me to log in, but my login didn't work (which is nice, because apparently my account is slightly more deleted now). So I tweeted at LinkedIn, and they said they put my email address on their Do Not Contact list.

Hopefully the reign of terror is over, but I somehow doubt it.

<comment><USER21> I don't even have a LinkedIn account, I've _never_ had an account, and I still receive their emails. It's mystifying...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is the tension that is LinkedIn.

While they were growing, they allowed great amount of sharing. Now it seems they are transitioning from a growth based company to growing their revenue-- I've personally been finding more and more examples of this increased friction.

So far that tension seems to still be 'ok', they still give away, for free, most of the value is in their huge user database. Their monetization strategy has been to tighten things up so it's still valuable for most people, with the exception of sales and recruiters. If you are one of them, then to get the value of the database you need to pay.

Given the network effects of their user database, I suspect over time what they give away will be less and less and we'll see more examples of this.

</comment><comment><USER23> I noticed this the other day -- while logged in, LinkedIn insisted I must upgrade to Premium in order to see the last name of the person whose profile I was looking at (which of course, was publicly once I logged out).

<comment><USER24> Might you find some value from the person, and LinkedIn, knowing _you_ looked at that profile?

I can't offhand think of any, but that's one difference between these two use cases.

<comment><USER25> Except anonymous users get the benefit of being both anonymous and able to view the profile. LinkedIn pushes users to either upgrade or sign out. Works for me, I don't like signing in often either.

<comment><USER26> They only really push users to upgrade. They don't let you know that you can view the full profile if you sign out. That's just an obscure (possibly temporary) workaround.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> LinkedIn really blew it. They were the one of the big social players (Facebook, Twitter, G+, Foursquare, Tumblr, LinkedIn) that had people who were happy to pay for premium features. Put another way, they were the only social player with a non-ad revenue play. The problem was that the people paying were recruiters, so they did a lot to make the recruiters happy. They forgot about those who the recruiters were targeting, however, and now people like us send LinkedIn straight to spam.

LinkedIn had a real opportunity to be the social network that added real value, but now (as evidenced by the comments below) people see them as a spammy, shady mess.

<comment><USER28> "People" on HN see them as a spammy, shady mess. People I've talked to that work in different industries are mystified that I don't use LinkedIn. They love it.

<comment><USER27> True, some industries like it more than others. But given that tech is one of the most heavily recruited industries right now you'd think that LinkedIn would want to keep a good image around the HN crowd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've wondered about this too. They don't seem to have a coherent "value capture" strategy. There is always tension between the 'let the customer see the value' and 'give away the value' except they do seem to have it backwards. As a non-logged in user you should not see profiles but as a logged in user you should. That at least would keep some of the scraper bots away.

<comment><USER30> their value strategy is allow recruiters to find the linkedin profile via google and than up sell the recruiter.

<comment><USER31> Absolutely. My coworkers and I all get cold calls and cold e-mails from recruiters who find our names/occupations on LinkedIn. I'm assuming these recruiters are using premium accounts and paying to send e-mails through LinkedIn.

<comment><USER32> For what it's worth, I get many more/worse emails and calls from people who scraped my github profile.

<comment><USER33> At least the people scraping my Github profile tends to have a slight idea about what languages I tend to work with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not directly related: I have a linkedin account, and once, I logged in and it recommended a connection which happened to be the guy who lives on my second floor. This guy was the roommate of the person who rents the second floor, I have never called, emailed, or texted this individual. He works in a completely unrelated business to me and we have no linkedin connections in common. No social media or any other sort of connections. I have no electronic connections with the _other_ guy who lives in that apartment. I have a different _mailing address_. The only thing we have in common is that he sometimes hops on my wifi when his is on the fritz. LinkedIn insists they don't use ip addresses for connections. OK. This is incredibly hard for me to believe.

I feel they pump their numbers with questionable tactics and people mostly use it because of fear. Fear that if they don't use it, their career will suffer. Which plays on a general unease that you could one day end up living in a ditch. So, imo, LinkedIn isn't absurd, it is sinister.

<comment><USER35> If you dig a little you can find several articles detailing LinkedIn's odd/scary ability to connect people having no discernible connection but a good reason to think there could/should be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I would love it if Matt Cutts and the rest of the Google search team decided to seriously derank any resource that requires login to view. LinkedIn, Quora and Experts Exchange are prime offenders here.

There is absolutely no reason for google to index any information that the general public can't see without logging in.

<comment><USER28> They do. LinkedIn allows you to view an anonymous version of the profile, so it doesn't technically break the rules.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I had success in asking LinkedIn to blacklist my email address [1].

My reasoning behind the decision was simply that I found their continual attempts to socially manipulate me insulting, and that I'd prefer not to be walked all over by any company, let alone one as trashy as LinkedIn.

[1]: [https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/426/](https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/426/)

</comment><comment><USER38> There are two things you can do with this information:

1) Balk at its seeming absurdity

2) Assume linkedin is a rational company and take the seeming absurdity as an insight into how to convert free users into premium users.

It is shocking how little it takes to convince some people to pull out their credit cards and sign up for an annual subscription.

<comment><USER39> Number two has to assume Linkedin is not only a rational company but also a competent one. I deleted my Linkedin account almost a decade ago and I still get mail from them. When I try to unsubscribe from the spam they send me I am dragged through the sign in procedure, for an account I do not have. When I use the forgot password function to try and figure out what account they are talking about and I enter all of my addresses one by one eventually finding out I definitely do not have any account. I am by this time so frustrated that I want to kick my computer down the stairs.

Every single step that has anything to do with not giving them money by the way is met with Captcha. I've never filled out so many captchas as when I tried to unsubscribe from Linkedin spam.

My only remaining option was to mark all email from them as spam. Stop using Linkedin. I certainly won't think fondly of anyone who tries to add me there. People just put my email address into a box and I get an email from Linkedin on top of the spam the company still sends me.

<comment><USER40> See this post elsewhere on the thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7674630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7674630)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Ah yes the tried-and-true "experts-exchange" model. How'd that work out for them, anyway?

<comment><USER42> DISCLAIMER: I'm Experts Exchange's senior volunteer administrator. That means, for the most part, that I've outlasted everyone else.

At the time EE imposed the cloaking / hard and fast paywall / masking / whatever you call it, we told them it was a bad idea. We understand why they did it -- it was to counteract the effects of a prior less-than-advisable decision -- but that didn't make it a good idea.

Long term, obviously, it resulted in 1) major penalties from Google and 2) a lot of competition EE didn't need to provoke.

New management has removed the paywall and redirects from external search results and links about two months ago; we expect that it will still be a few months longer before the penalties will be overcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> As I noted on Twitter recently, "LinkedIn, the place where you can get endorsed for skills you don't have by people you've never met, reaches 300 million users." [https://twitter.com/danielbmarkham/status/457298482978512896](https://twitter.com/danielbmarkham/status/457298482978512896)

What can you say? The thing is growing. People use it. It's definitely no Facebook (e-gads, is that EVEN a compliment?) but they're a contender.

If I had to choose, I'd say I hate LinkedIn less than Facebook because at least they haven't mastered social manipulation to the degree that Facebook has. They're kind of rookie-league slimy. I guess that's something.

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't have a LinkedIn account, and they still keep emailing me. Go away LinkedIn, I do not want your spam.

</comment><comment><USER45> I hate LinkedIn. It's a terrible, cluttered mess of a website. It's shady as all hell. Their mobile app is unusable.

And yet, just by having a profile that's even vaguely up to date, I get job offers left and right. Most of them are complete crap, but I was also contacted by a recruiter for one of the big four on there. I filter all the email to a separate folder where it can rot eternally, and I page through the messages on LinkedIn every few weeks to see if there's anything interesting.

</comment><comment><USER46> Unrelated to this post, I was trying to downgrade my account from premium to free today. It was surprisingly hard to find the path. I had to google it. Btw, it's under "Privacy and Settings", not under "Account" where you'd expect.

I have nothing against LinkedIn and find it helpful. It just struck me as something that was discussed in a design meeting- "how can we make cancellation hard to do?"

</comment><comment><USER47> About time I got to this ... [http://i.imgur.com/0oIx1uC.png](http://i.imgur.com/0oIx1uC.png)

</comment><comment><USER48> The article isn't entirely accurate about viewing 3rd degree connections. There are considerable number of profiles who have lot less information publicly viewable (on public url), in those cases this wont work. Linkedin is basically trying to achieve 2 things here: a) Show you what you can do using premium b) Convert/onboard user If you have tried premium before, they will highlight it when "you are viewing a 3rd degree profile".

There is a very very simple __HACK __for viewing full 3rd degree profiles without being a subscriber. Here 's what you need to do:

\- When you arrive at a 3rd degree profile, copy the 'name' and 'company' (or an other attribute) e.g. 'Chris Amazon manager'

\- Google search for 'Chris Amazon manager linkedin', you'll get the full name of the person, but still would view a 3rd degree profile

\- Now copy the full name + 'attribute' and search in linkedin, voila... You see the full profile.

</comment><comment><USER49> Fun fact - small recruitment agencies use this tactic to stalk candidates... it's even got a name: x-ray searches

[https://www.linkedin.com/groups/How-Google-XRay-Search- Linke...](https://www.linkedin.com/groups/How-Google-XRay-Search- LinkedIn-114325.S.112175327)

(I realise the irony of posting a linkedin link)

</comment><comment><USER50> So, has anyone been working (or pondering working) on alternatives?

Ideally (and perhaps naively), I can see a diaspora-like abstract semi- decentralized / federated social network infrastructure which could then be used to build all sorts of social networks (e.g. friends/diaspora-like "non- evil version of facebook," "professional like-linkedin-but-not-evil network," what have you.) The kind of vibe that federated open source systems like tent.io might have.

Of course it's all about network effects and "actually getting a critical mass of people to use $thing," but _ideally_ , there should be a generic federated- social-network-protocol which may support many clients / web portals, and many particular social networks. "I've built a non-evil-linkedin-clone, join this network by clicking one button."

<comment><USER51> I worked on a decentralized social network for a while, but eventually gave up on it because it was impossible to get traction (especially since other open source alternatives "exist").

<comment><USER50> Did you end up open sourcing the parts of the thing that you ended up implementing/writing? Seems like a waste to just throw it into a trash bin. (But of course there may be nuances / it may be hard to do that, etc.) Non- working code on github and a blog post explaining what has been done is imho >> nothing!

<comment><USER51> No, it was open source from the beginning - one of my hobby projects. I believe open source is the only way something like this can work at all.

I had some early adopters who used the prototype, which motivated me initially. As I spent some time developing the actual version, people drifted away (mostly back to Facebook). In hindsight, I should not have thrown the prototype away - big mistake.

When I tried to get other people interested the answer was basically either "you'll pry Facebook out of my cold dead hands" or (sometimes literally) "why are you wasting your time on this stupid shit when Diaspora exists?". At the time Diaspora had just gotten funding and people were actually really hostile or condescending towards the idea that someone was working on anything else.

After that I basically suspended my efforts. I might eventually get back to it when/if fancy strikes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> The thing that gets me is their pricing. I pay about $40/month for my cablemodem if you extract that cost away from the other parts of my internet provider. LinkedIn costs minimally $30/month? I realize it's apples to oranges, but it just seems like an absurdly expensive service unless you're working as a hiring agent for a company. But based on the number of emails LinkedIn sends trying to convince me to upgrade my account - I can only assume they see their target customer as more than just the HR departments of the world.

How could I possibly value what LinkedIn could provide at close to what I get from internet access? It's not even close. I'd pay ___maybe_ __$3 /month to access what LinkedIn is selling out of curiosity ... but even then, I don't know that I'd keep the plan.

<comment><USER53> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7673915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7673915) This person claims to have got multiple contracts at >$1000/day from LinkedIn.

At that rate, if you used it to get one day of contracting, you would pay for Linkedin for two and a half years, and it would be much more valuable to you than a decade of tech-blogs.

<comment><USER52> Seems like a great use-case for that type of worker, and obviously well worth the price. But I'd guess that the vast majority of job seekers are looking for longer-term employment with a single employer. If their target audience includes those types of users, it's difficult to see how it'd be worth the membership price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Heh I do the same. I've been using porn mode so often that I remember shortcut by heart (shit+cmd+N)

I really don't understand this strategy. Don't hold to "your" data so aggressively, build a platform. I'd be happy to pay for premium API to LinkedIn to build a custom CRM and other tools.

</comment><comment><USER55> I've been doing this for awhile now. By going incognito, you not only get more information on that person but also you don't let them know you have been viewing them. It's pretty ridiculous that LinkedIn gives you more disadvantages than advantages for being logged in.

</comment><comment><USER56> I deleted my profile once I started receiving spam from an address I had only given to them.

</comment><comment><USER57> LinkedIn is a great analog for its target audience. Meaningless flattery is the primary social currency, users are constantly harassed to engage in pointless drivel that distracts from real productive work, exorbitant fees are exchanged for products and services of dubious value, and everyone pretends to be your friend while they secretly resent you. Sounds just like a corporate job to me!

Seriously though, I don't know if you can grow a social network for professionals without mimicking a lot of the bad things that are inherent in the modern work place.

</comment><comment><USER58> Neat trick: when wanting to see the full profile, just search LinkedIn for their name. If you come from search results, you can see the full profile (if their privacy settings allow it, which most do).

</comment><comment><USER59> Linkedin seems to exist entirely so recruiters can spam people. I put up with it for a long time but finally had enough and deleted my profile. Nothing of value was lost and I get a lot less spam.

</comment><comment><USER60> This has been the case for quite a while. I've gotten used to using LinkedIn in another browser where I'm not logged in.

It's pretty obvious that LinkedIn's strategy is completely dictated by sales and marketing droids with zero respect for the user or the product.

Neither a strong product manager nor a responsible development team would ever accept such an illogical anti-user feature just to scratch extra sales out of existing users whilst at the same time maintaining their Google footprint.

</comment><comment><USER61> Linkedin has always baffled me with this stuff.

It's the guy at the party who's so nervous to over-control the social situation, right down to the T in Gil's name.

</comment><comment><USER62> Remember LinkedIn Intro? [http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/24/do-not- want/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/24/do-not-want/)

I'm sure they have many spectacularly bad ideas lined up. Intro was just one that leaked out. The absurdity in the OP blog is just one that was noticed.

This is not a one-time thing. This is their strategy. I can't believe people still use LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER63> I found Hulu to be the same so I don't use my account anymore.

You have three options with Hulu: watch free anonymously, get a free account, get a subscription on top of your free account.

Free users are given 7 days of trial, after which they show you all the content you _could_ have, if you were asubscriber. Suddenly nothing you see you can click on (until you either log out or subscribe). So I just use it logged out.

</comment><comment><USER64> You can pay to remove that restriction. You're almost guaranteed this was shipped because it showed a stat sig improvement in revenue. While this may seem absurd, most people are not savvy enough to realize there are simple solutions to workaround this restriction and pay up.

You may counter this is so absurd that you wont use LinkedIn anymore. But is that really true? I doubt it.

</comment><comment><USER65> For an employee, LinkedIn is a marketing tool. For all it's downsides, it _does_ make it easier for companies to discover" you. _This_ is why people put up with LinkedIn.

If your personal network is such that you don't want to be discovered by people who don't already know you, or you want to handle/control all your own marketing, that's fine.

</comment><comment><USER66> Old news, it has been like this for some times

</comment><comment><USER67> You think using LinkedIn is bad, try developing for it. The developer community is left to fend for itself – the API randomly changes, questions go unanswered, bug fixes are promised and then never delivered.

See: [http://fucknolinkedindev.tumblr.com/](http://fucknolinkedindev.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER68> Along the same lines, but worse... If you're signed up for the emails they send out about top news in your network or news mentions of people in your network, and you click through the links in the email, they make you log in. From your phone. To read a news article. Drives me insane.

</comment><comment><USER69> Meh, I treat LinkedIn as a glorified variable dump. Just dump client names, stack and value added to the company when I work on a project. I don't really know anyone who 'networks' within it. I don't see myself chatting with people on there.

</comment><comment><USER70> You know what really pisses me off? When any change to your profile gets broadcasted to your entire network. This needs to be off by default. My "feed" is inundated with updates with updates about people tweaking their title or personal information.

</comment><comment><USER71> That's funny, I was tweeting my annoyance about this very subject this morning: [https://twitter.com/Major_Grooves/status/461456872017784832](https://twitter.com/Major_Grooves/status/461456872017784832)

</comment><comment><USER72> I also have considered cancelling my account. The amount of SPAM, even setting every profile option to 'no email' is absurd sometimes.

That said, I had lost track of an old friend and he just pinged me to join his network. So, at least for now, there is some value.

</comment><comment><USER73> A few of my friends have taken advantage of this to create a search engine that allows you to look up anyone on LinkedIn without having to pay LinkedIn.

Try [http://www.recruitem.net](http://www.recruitem.net) in incognito mode.

</comment><comment><USER74> "The" absurdity as if this is the single thing that is absurd about LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER75> LinkedIn is getting a bit silly with some of their ideas. Just like the recommendation/endorsements thing, absolutely useless. I have people endorsing mw who I have never met or spoken to about my job!

</comment><comment><USER76> I also use this method for looking at people's profiles without pinging them for a "Viewed by", which makes it so I can still see who is looking at mine.

</comment><comment><USER77> If you search full first + last name on linkedin you can usually view the full profile without going into incognito.

</comment><comment><USER78> LNKD may well be the most overvalued stock in the whole world.

20B market cap for what?

It's the only top-ten social tech stocks I never use.

</comment><comment><USER79> This looks like a bug. I can see the guy's profile just fine as a registered LinkedIn user.

</comment><comment><USER80> LinkedIn pursues a bullshit strategy. Instead of adding value and figuring out how to monetize it, they want to hide whatever value they brought to the table, and charge $39.95 for what is essentially a resume hosting service and a broken email system. I discovered long ago that browsing LinkedIn while logged out gives me a better experience.

</comment><comment><USER81> It's even worse on mobile. Search for Gil Travish on the app. Full profile available.

</comment><comment><USER82> LinkedIn has locked down their system so much, when someone asks me to send the URL to my LinkedIn profile, often they can't see it without a premium account. Even with a premium account. I have to download my profile as a PDF, and send that. Lame!

</comment><comment><USER83> I only ever view LinkedIn profiles in an incognito window. I don't want to appear in the "These people viewed your profile" emails that they send out.

</comment><comment><USER84> Is there a good alternative to Rapportive?

</comment><comment><USER85> Linkedin will stay as long as there is nothing better. They're very much ripe for disruption, but breaking the network effects is going to be hard.

</comment><comment><USER86> c xxzzzzxzzzzzx xxxxzxxx x xx cçcccccccccxx x xxxxxxxxxcxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxz

</comment><comment><USER87> I just setup a linked in account recently. Felt like I didn't have much choice.

</comment><comment><USER88> spoiler: never use linkedin when logged in.

</comment><comment><USER86> c xxzzzzxzzzzzx xxxx

</comment><comment><USER89> Also the mobile app sucks.

</comment><comment><USER90> I have just closed my account that I had there for years.

</comment><comment><USER91> Seems to be an oversight on LinkedIn's part.

<comment><USER92> No, I'm pretty sure it's a purposeful strategy to acquire paying users.</comment></comment>