LinkedIn Newsletters are spam and a scam

Many people have been suggesting me to start a “LinkedIn Newsletter” for my space articles specifically because it will tap into my existing connections and their networks on the platform. After much reluctance against joining yet another siloed service, I thought perhaps it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot. You know, I’d at least get some more email subscribers in the worst case. And so I created one. As it turns out, LinkedIn Newsletters are terrible through and through.

The spam

First off, as soon as I made my first LinkedIn Newsletter post, LinkedIn automatically sent out an “invitation” to all my connections and followers to subscribe—without telling me it will do so in the way it did: with notifications that look like I specifically personally invited that person. Which I did not! This is especially bad for people who are already subscribed to my space blog since this must’ve felt like spam. If that was you, I’m sorry but I had zero control over if, when, and how I could send that entitled “invite”.

The scam

LinkedIn Newsletters do not meet the fundamental definition of a newsletter. You can’t export your subscriber emails to, say, import them to another platform if and when you want to move away your newsletter from LinkedIn for whatever reason. The whole point of having mailing lists for your work is that it’s a direct connection between you and your readers. It’s portable and platform-agnostic. But LinkedIn Newsletters are a scam because they…