Leaving LinkedIn was easy, because it doesn't seem to be useful in my country (AT) + premium is too expensive IMO

is LinkedIn useful in any country?
- Depends on your job and needs.
  Sadly, yes. I know several people who found their job on LinkedIn in OPs country for example(sampling warning: because I have close ties to an Austrian company recruiting actively there).
  I see the problem similar to the fediverse: for mass attraction you need either mass or a selling point. LinkedIn at least has the numbers...
  I'm annoyed by it every time I have to open it but there are too many business ties to just dump for me and I don't have the influence to convince anyone to change communication platforms.
  All of that is my profession bubble of course.
- Less than it was but still useful. I know several people who were approached by recruiters and got their current jobs via that. And these were decent specialist jobs in R&D.
  I have been approached many times, however half the time it was for something completely outside my experience, the ones that weren't I didn't have enough experience in comparison to other candidates. And I am not actively looking to change jobs.
  It has gotten less like that though and the feed has become almost completely useless unless you aggressively block everyone perpetuating crappy posts. But then there's ads for companies that ublock doesn't seem to detect because they are just looking like posts.
- The feed/social network bit is useless, but it's (sadly) by far the best job-search tool for my industry (tech).
  I always try to use other platforms, but my last 3 jobs have all been found through linkedin. This across various European countries, if that helps as a reference point.
- Yeah office jobs in my country are basically all posted there, especially if you want to work for an international company.

I use LinkedIn exclusively to post AI generated business bullshit that others like and comment with AI generated bullshit.

It is really sad to admit that for me LinkedIn actually was useful: even though I was contacted by spammy recruiters, the matching ones were there too.
I wish other services were more popular in Europe, example being https://djinni.co/ — an anonymous job/candidate board built in Ukraine. I really liked the service in the past, though EU-based companies usually do not pos jobs there…

It was never useful in my country either (USA). All I ever got out of it was strangers saying, "Hey, you don't know me or have any reason to talk to me, how about joining my network!"

Here's what your post tought me about B2B sales....
LinkedIN was also my first thing to closed. Easy choice. A little vale I got from it was wasty overwaighted, by the see of humble brags, aggressive sell attempts disguised as reaching for connections, and strigth up lunacy.
But I do miss some place where I can be connected with my profesional network. I hope something will fill in the space soon. 2nd biggest competitor where I live went completely offline a few months ago.

All I do there is writing no thank yous to recruiters. Idk my data is already on there, might as well let it rot for when I'm looking... (GER)

Xing is so much better.

I work freelance so, I need LinkedIn for visibility.