I sort of liked LinkedIn until they (like Facebook, twitter and others) made "liking" or commenting equivalent to sharing. There's no distinction nowadays. And, as a result, my feed is now mostly recruiter memes. I also stopped reacting to any posts in any way since I don't want all of my connections to see everything I do.
I think the most important thing to understand about LinkedIn as an individual is that you are publishing what you put out there. It's not a private space and it's not meant to be (except for the messaging).
They do provide tools, at least, so you can see what other people see.
If you think of it as a professional and self-presentation network which other people understand it to be as well, then it's fair game to play that to your advantage. Signal what you want to signal.
I only "like" things that I actually like, but each time I'm conscious that it's a signal others may browse later, so I'm also careful to only "like" things that overlap with my professional side enough that I'm happy for people to see.
So for example I'll happily "like" things in (e.g.) open source hardware or cool tech that I think adds to a better world. Including stuff that may not be commercial. After all I want to work more in those fields, and I also want certain things to be seen by others for non-selfish reasons (e.g. better prosthetic limbs, say).
Doing that shows my interest in particular fields and may (perhaps!) lead to interactions I'd like. And I'll interact with things posted by people I like or respect, because helping each other is a thing.
So it's all genuine. But it's not everything I think.
If someone posts something more "social media-ish", i.e. like Facebook, or some controversial commentary, I avoid interacting actively with it on LI regardless of my opinions, because that's not what I want people to see about me in the quasi-professional realm. And as it happens it's also not what I want to see more of on LI either.
One of the things I like about LinkedIn is you can actually get your personal data (when that feature isn't broken - it has bugs too), and you can easily browse what other people can see about you, including your trail of likes and comments etc. Being informed about my trail, I feel the platform is less misleading, and in some ways less abusive, than some other social media platforms.
