I find linkedin is the most useful social network I'm a part of, even though I rarely visit it. I have made many professional connections, and linkedin aggregates them nicely and I find the periodic emails of people getting new jobs or new titles to be very interesting. I guess I am not as annoyed about the shady tactics as you are, I just ignore them.

So I'm sorry that you don't like the site, but I politely decline your recommendation to delete my account.

I look at UI changes in a totally different way now. My saw me come online on Skype, so she called me. There's an ocean between us currently. She said she called me because she was writing an email to me, but couldn't find the Send button, so didn't know how to send it. Either it made her feel stupid or frustrated, or she felt so sad that she couldn't send an email to me that she had spent some time writing, or whatever, but she started crying. She was crying because she couldn't find the Send button in gmail. She's approaching 60 and isn't as technically adept as some of us, so that is admittedly a factor.

Seeing her cry about this made me change the way I think about what some users go through when they experience unexpected UI changes. I remember hearing people say they got confused by Windows 8 tiles, and didn't think it was such a big deal. After seeing my mom cry over a UI change, I think there are better ways to implement UI changes than simply shoving them down people's throat. Sure, if it must be done, it must be done (UI change), but don't shove it down people's throats unexpectedly and with no hand-holding at all.