When Cory Doctorow came out with his framework for how Internet platforms die, I was a bit skeptical.
After all, relatively few of the platforms that have dominated the first 30 years of the Internet (from Google to Facebook to Twitter) have ACTUALLY died.
Dying maybe - but definitely not dead... :)
But then I thought about what's going on with LinkedIn's new invite limits and their corresponding surge in Premium subscriptions and I realized that Cory nailed it:
1) LinkedIn has created so much value for job-seekers - especially when you think about how hard it would have been to network across an organization in 1999.
2) For the most part, they let job-seekers capture that value free of charge - in exchange for having their data leveraged by recruiters, marketers, and salespeople, of course.
3) But now that LinkedIn is part of the most valuable company in America - and expected to still grow as fast as a startup - it basically has now choice but to "claw back all the value for themselves," as Cory notes. And of course, the easiest way to do that is to place a paywall around the most valuable part of the site - connections.
4) Which means that the majority of job-seekers who can't pony up $40/month+ to get LinkedIn Premium will start to use LinkedIn a little less.
5) Which will in turn make LinkedIn less valuable to those recruiters, marketers, and salespeople.
Which is, ultimately, how an amazing platform dies.
What do you think? Is this the beginning of the end for LinkedIn? Or is it so thoroughly dominant that nothing can lead to its demise at this point???
Let me know in the Comments!