(2025-09-01) Linkedin Isnt For Networking Its The Digital Day Spa For Corporate Conformity

Mark McGrath: LinkedIn Isn't for Networking. It's the Digital Day Spa for Corporate Conformity. Spend enough time on LinkedIn and the air starts to feel filtered. It's not just the self-congratulation. It's not just the corporate memes. It's the environment itself. The platform doesn't invite discovery and innovation. It rewards safety. This is The Digital Day Spa.

The Guardians of Decay treat it like their sacred sanctuary. These are the HR enforcers, DEI consultants, and risk-averse compliance officers who work tirelessly to sanitize and curtail original public expression

Next to them, lounging comfortably, are the the consultants, spreadsheet artists, veteran military motivational hustlers peddling linear OODA and "backwards" planning (working backwards), and template vendors. They aren't here to engage. They're here to monetize your need for clarity in a world of chaos.

This is not a professional network. This is not a place to grow business. This is not the place for entrepreneurs. It's a fixed menu of managed identities.

LinkedIn Doesn't Promote Value. It Promotes Permission.

If you post something insightful, something that challenges systems, provokes new action, or offers real-world strategic value, your impressions will hover at less than 1% of your followers

It's not that quality doesn't exist on LinkedIn. If you have the time and the right search entry you might find it.

Templates of Digital Day Spa-Safe Virality

These are not driving business and growth. They are not even interesting career updates. They are approved scripts. Every one of them is designed to keep you engaged without ever making corporate uncomfortable. (engagement)

After a certain point, you stop posting what's useful and start posting what's allowed (Or you quit entirely and go to Substack).

Eventually, you start to self-filter and self-censor. You dial back anything that makes people think too hard. You sand off the edges of your own voice.

Substack Still Allows Free Movement. That's Why It's a Threat.

Substack isn't a perfect platform. But (at the moment) it isn't built to protect comfort. It's built to protect expression, networks, and the co-creation of real value.

That's why the digital day spa crowd is nervous. They've started sniffing around. They are wondering how to wrangle Substack into the corral of banal.

The question isn't whether LinkedIn is usable. The question is whether it's corrosive to your clarity over time.

You can try to build a brand there.
But over time, you'll begin to lose something more important than impressions:
Your ability to create value in an authentic network that promotes thinking and speaking freely without permission.

Expose the Spa. Share the Signal.