LinkedIn says it's sending 50% fewer emails, launches system for smarter, less frequent notifications
Sending Less Email on LinkedIn is Just the Beginning via @EricaLockheimer http://blog.linkedin.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The backdrop here is an inbox that had already stopped growing: Symantec's mid-2015 measurement found spam falling below half of all email for the first time since 2003, meaning legitimate senders were competing for a user's attention against less junk than in over a decade. Against that arc, a major platform like LinkedIn choosing to halve its own outbound volume is a bet that notification relevance — not raw reach — is what keeps members opening messages at all.
First-order effects
- LinkedIn members will see roughly half as many LinkedIn emails in their inboxes, replaced by a new system that decides which updates merit a message and which stay in-product.
- LinkedIn itself absorbs the near-term cost: every cut email is surrendered re-engagement inventory it previously used to pull users back.
Second-order effects
- Other high-volume social and professional networks face pressure to adopt similar throttling, because a user trained by LinkedIn to expect fewer, better-targeted emails applies that standard to every sender.
- Email deliverability economics tilt further toward senders who can prove per-message relevance, raising the bar for platforms still running broadcast-style notification programs.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform-to-user email shifts from a volume game to a signal-ranking problem — the same algorithmic curation applied to feeds gets applied to the inbox, and notification frequency becomes a designed product surface rather than a growth lever.
The trend: Consumer internet platforms are replacing broadcast email blasts with algorithmically ranked, deliberately scarce notifications as inbox attention becomes the scarcer resource.