A Better Alternative to LinkedIn
Professionals and businesses should take back control of their data from the walled gardens of Big Tech.
Bluesky has quite the reputation as being full of Luddite scolds, a product of its core posters being those who fled Twitter during Musk’s takeover, which happened to coincide with Bluesky’s launch. Regardless of what you think about the community there, the technology upon which it is built, AT Protocol, is deeply compelling.
Though Bluesky makes this process transparent for people who simply want a Twitter replacement, AT Protocol consists of a constellation of “personal data servers” tied to a decentralized, cryptographically verified identification. Though the modal user’s PDS is hosted by Bluesky themselves, anyone can host a PDS that serves data through AT Protocol. Though app developers may choose to censor you from their particular platform, no one can stop you from putting the data you care about out there.
As a passionate believer in decentralization and the need to give people more control over their data again to fight the control Big Tech exerted through “Web 2.0,” this structure is deeply compelling to me. I’ve dabbled with it in numerous ways already, such as making a Wordle clone, a macOS menubar app for easy posting, and even a Mac tool for easily browsing protocol data.
However, we are now rolling out a closed beta — that will soon enable invites so people can gradually bring others abroad — of a far more compelling and deep venture: ProtoPro. Though we want to refrain from limiting our thinking to just being a LinkedIn alternative, the core premise of the project is essentially that LinkedIn sucks and we can do better. They’ve created a walled garden of professional data that enables them to extract as much value as possible, all the while existing methods of hiring are increasingly deeply broken.
In the closed beta, we already offer tools to build out profiles that double as resumes or CVs and for companies to list jobs, but we are just scratching the surface. Over the long term, the hope is ProtoPro will become the hub for both professionals and businesses seeking to collaborate and coordinate through the internet — with a deep care for providing the means for people to truly own and control their own data.
You shouldn’t be limited by the features we offer, and, heaven forbid, if we start sucking, you should be able to take your data elsewhere. That potential is unleashed when building on a decentralized protocol. At ProtoPro’s core, we are offering UX and social coordination solutions, not trapping you into a rent-seeking relationship.
Please consider following ProtoPro on Bluesky or Twitter to keep up with the latest updates, or you can request access to the beta here — while we are pacing early growth to make sure our technical and moderation processes scale, we will get you in very soon! Let’s start liberating the technology of the professional world together!