Ten years ago it was pretty great. I used it to keep track of ex-coworkers who were worth knowing, and it was easy to see where they currently were in their careers.

I always thought that if I ever wanted to start another startup, it would be easy to look through my list of contacts and find amazingly talented people who might be interested.

The dearth of viable "family" health insurance plans put the kibbosh on that idea. Right now if you want good health care in America, you have to work for a company large enough that insurance companies will make their high-end health plans available to them. Startups don't get access to those.

And now LinkedIn has degenerated into a toxic morass of clueless, desperate recruiters and spam. Ah well.