Is there life beyond LinkedIn for entrepreneurs?

For years, LinkedIn has occupied a strange, almost untouchable position in professional life. It is widely mocked, often ignored, occasionally useful—and yet nearly impossible to replace. Among entrepreneurs, founders and independent professionals, the question keeps resurfacing: do we really need LinkedIn, or are we simply trapped by it?

A recent discussion on Hacker News reignited this debate with unusual clarity. Under the deceptively simple question “Why isn’t there competition to LinkedIn yet?”, dozens of builders, hiring managers and founders dissected what LinkedIn actually is, why it persists, and whether a real alternative could ever emerge. Their comments offer a revealing snapshot of how the platform is perceived by people who build companies for a living.

LinkedIn’s real product isn’t the feed

One of the most consistent themes in the discussion is that LinkedIn is widely misunderstood—even by its critics. Many entrepreneurs complain about the platform’s content: motivational posts, personal branding threads and algorithm-friendly “thought leadership.” But several Hacker News users argue that this is not the core product at all.

“The core problem that LinkedIn solves has nothing to do with all the ‘social media’ style content that plagues the platform,” wrote codingdave. “It is a long-term rolodex to be able to talk to former co-workers, while also getting contacted by recruiters.”

From this perspective, LinkedIn’s endless feed is a sideshow. The real value lies in something far more boring—and far more durable: a persistent, searchable map of professional relationships that survives job changes, company failures and entire career pivots.

Another user, Aurornis, put it even more bluntly: “Make a profile. Update it occasionally when you’re job searching. Forget about the site until you need it.” For most professionals, LinkedIn is not something to engage with daily, but something to exist on, quietly, in case it becomes useful.

Network effects as career handcuffs

If LinkedIn is so disliked, why hasn’t anyone dethroned it? The most common answer is also the least exciting: network effects.

“No person will migrate until most of their connectors migrate,” explained w10-1. “And even if users don’t like it, if companies continue to rely on it, switching would be a career-limiting move.”

For entrepreneurs, this is a familiar trap. The value of the platform grows with every additional user, but that same growth makes exit prohibitively expensive. Leaving LinkedIn does not just mean abandoning a product; it means walking away from a shared professional coordination point that recruiters, clients and partners still treat as default.

Several commenters compared this to earlier eras of social media dominance. The difference, however, is that LinkedIn does not depend on daily engagement to survive. As smoody07 noted, LinkedIn functions as “an always-on jobs expo pretending to be social media.” People may hate the feed, but they tolerate the platform because it remains the Schelling point for career transitions.

Founders see a different LinkedIn

While many comments came from individual contributors, some founders and hiring managers pushed back on the idea that LinkedIn is merely a passive résumé database.

“This is spoken from a permaemployee perspective,” argued swyx, suggesting that LinkedIn changes meaning once you are hiring, fundraising or selling. Recruiter tools, sales products and premium subscriptions generate much of LinkedIn’s revenue—and those tools are designed explicitly for people building teams and businesses.

Yet even among hiring managers, enthusiasm is muted. Aurornis, who said they spend more time hiring than coding, admitted to posting job openings but still avoiding the feed entirely. “It’s heavily biased toward people who spend a lot of time scrolling,” they wrote, questioning whether high LinkedIn engagement is even a positive hiring signal.

For entrepreneurs, this creates an odd dynamic: LinkedIn is operationally useful, but culturally suspect. It works, but few people are proud to rely on it.

Social media LinkedIn mockup.

Niche platforms already exist—and that may be the point

Another recurring argument is that LinkedIn already has competition—just not in a single, universal form.

“GitHub is LinkedIn for programmers. Behance is LinkedIn for designers,” wrote mvkel. Others pointed to AngelList (now Wellfound), Xing in Europe, or Wantedly in Japan. These platforms succeed by focusing on verifiable work, not generalized professional identity.

From this angle, LinkedIn’s strength may also be its weakness. By trying to be everything for everyone, it leaves space for vertical networks that serve specific communities better. Entrepreneurs, especially in tech, already use Twitter/X, Hacker News profiles, GitHub repos or personal websites as informal résumés.

As zahirbmirza observed, “There is no need for a contender because LinkedIn is a poorly thought solution to an ill addressed problem.” In practice, professional identity has already fragmented across multiple platforms.

The ownership problem: who controls your career data?

Some of the most forward-looking comments focused less on replacing LinkedIn and more on escaping platform dependence altogether.

“We need a better model,” argued theturtletalks. “Platforms like LinkedIn shouldn’t own your content. They should just connect to your own personal website.” Their vision resembles a decentralized professional web, where individuals control their data and syndicate it outward rather than surrendering it to a single company.

This idea resonates strongly with entrepreneurs who already maintain personal sites, newsletters or portfolios. Yet it also runs into the same coordination problem: ownership is empowering, but visibility still depends on where everyone else is.

Why entrepreneurs still tolerate LinkedIn

Perhaps the most honest assessment came from aclimatt: “Competition doesn’t just appear for fun; it appears because there is differentiated value to be captured.” Despite its flaws, LinkedIn still delivers enough value—especially at critical career moments—to justify its dominance.

Entrepreneurs may dislike the tone, distrust the incentives and mock the content, but they continue to use the platform because it solves a painfully specific problem: being professionally discoverable at exactly the wrong—or right—moment.

As shadowtree summed it up, LinkedIn is a “self-cleaning corporate rolodex.” It killed business cards, standardized CVs and quietly became infrastructure.

So, do we need an alternative?

The Hacker News discussion suggests a paradox. People want an alternative to LinkedIn, but not another LinkedIn. They want less noise, more trust, better signals and genuine ownership—without sacrificing reach or opportunity.

For entrepreneurs, the most realistic future may not be a single replacement platform, but a gradual shift toward portfolios, identity layers and niche networks that chip away at LinkedIn’s monopoly from the edges. Until then, LinkedIn remains what it has always been: widely disliked, rarely loved, but deeply embedded in professional life.

And that may be precisely why replacing it is so hard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why hasn’t LinkedIn been replaced yet?

Because of strong network effects. Most professionals stay because everyone else is already there, making exit costly.

Do entrepreneurs use LinkedIn differently than employees?

Yes. Founders and hiring managers rely more on recruiting and sales tools, even if they dislike the social feed.

Are there real alternatives to LinkedIn today?

There are niche alternatives like GitHub, Behance and Wellfound, but no single platform offers the same universal reach.

Is LinkedIn mainly a social media platform?

Many users argue it is not. Its core value is as a professional directory and hiring infrastructure, not a content feed.

What could realistically disrupt LinkedIn in the future?

New models focused on verifiable work, decentralized identity, or underserved professional segments could gradually weaken its dominance.