&gt; It is surprising to me that this feels so negative to you. Every large social tech company - Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Groupon, LivingSocial (RIP), Tinder - have all used tactics similar to what you label &#x27;dark patterns&#x27; to bootstrap their businesses.<p>Yes, LinkedIn is well known for essentially spreading itself like a virus with a bunch of interactions unknown to the user and that&#x27;s exactly why no one should be using it. If I see that someone has a LinkedIn profile it&#x27;s pretty much a minus nowadays.