1.3 bn
registered LinkedIn members worldwide. Registered does not mean active.
An open, non-profit professional network – if enough people come along
Everyone complains about LinkedIn. Everyone stays. Why?
New networks rarely fail on technology; they fail because nobody wants to move first. So we turn it around: first enough people pledge, then we build. Nobody moves alone.
1 · Survey
What bothers you, what has LinkedIn really done for you? Ten short questions, one at a time, anonymous.
Start the survey →
2 · Wishes
What would a better network need? Vote, or suggest something yourself.
Vote →
3 · Join
Pledge to come along, help build, donate or co-found the association.
Pledge →
Progress so far
We only start once enough people pledge. This is where we are:
Why I’m asking
I’ve been on LinkedIn since 2014 and active since 2024. I can’t name a single project or connection that really moved me forward. Through XING, the German network, I got a lot of work between 2015 and 2024. Is it just me?
The situation in November 2026
Figures from public sources. They show patterns, not representative satisfaction.
15 % · 8 %
of people in Germany use LinkedIn and XING respectively. A May 2025 survey found that 83 % use neither.
over 40 %
of longer LinkedIn posts were classified as AI-generated in a large sample.
1 million
times members pressed the new “seems like AI slop” button in the first weeks.
−13 % · −17 %
fewer likes and comments in early 2026 than a year before, across 673,658 posts.
18–22 %
of job postings on a large recruiting platform were ghost jobs with no real intent to hire.
3 Nov 2025
Since then LinkedIn trains AI on its members’ data unless they opt out.
€310 m
fine imposed on LinkedIn by the Irish Data Protection Commission over behavioural analysis and targeted ads.
What about the alternatives?
- Polywork raised more than 40 million dollars and shut down in January 2025. Read.cv closed in May 2025. Neither failed on design; they failed because too few people were there.
- Open professional networks already exist, for example vutuv (open source, connected to the Fediverse) with a few thousand members. Software is not the problem.
- XING, the German-speaking network, has removed its groups and is used less than LinkedIn, but for many small and mid-sized businesses it is still a place to find work.
So why does everyone stay?
The first two reasons are well documented, the last two are our assessment.
- That’s where the people are. Clients, former colleagues, recruiters. A network is only as good as the people in it.
- You can’t take your contacts with you. You can export a list, but not attention and trust.
- Hoping for the one big hit. People who succeed talk about it; people who get nothing stay quiet. So LinkedIn looks more successful than it is for most.
- People don’t leave, they go quiet. Many cancel Premium, filter their feed or keep their profile only as a business card.
That is exactly why we collect pledges: once everyone knows enough others are coming, the first step is easy. Pledge now →
What this is – and what it isn’t
- Planned as a non-profit: Kontor is meant to be run by a non-profit association owned by its community, not by investors. Principles and draft statutes are public.
- Open: The code is on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0 licence. The results are public.
- Pledges first, then building: If too few people come along, we won’t build anything. That is a result too.
- Nothing for sale: Nothing is sold here, no data is passed on or used for AI training.
“Kontor” is a working title – after the Hamburg trading offices where merchants met and did business.