What we can learn from XING’s failure

In Part 1 of this series, we analysed the four core problems with LinkedIn. The obvious follow-up question: why doesn’t someone just build a better alternative?

The answer sits in Hamburg. It’s called XING.

Rise and fall of a European alternative

In 2003, Lars Hinrichs founded “OpenBC” in Hamburg – later renamed XING. For a long time, the network was the dominant player in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). As recently as 2020, XING had around 19 million users in the German-speaking world, while LinkedIn stood at roughly 14 million.

Then it flipped.

Recent data from YouGov and Macromedia University (February 2026) shows the extent: 32 percent of LinkedIn users access the platform daily – for XING, it’s just 12 percent. LinkedIn’s user base skews younger and more active.

Five causes of failure

1. Deliberate regional self-limitation

XING strategically restricted itself to the DACH region – and was vocal about it. In a globalised working world, this became a structural disadvantage. Anyone with international contacts had to use LinkedIn as well. And when you maintain two profiles, you eventually focus on one.

2. Microsoft as game-changer

The 2016 Microsoft acquisition changed everything. LinkedIn gained access to Microsoft’s sales force, enterprise customers, and the entire Office ecosystem – Outlook, Teams, Windows. XING, owned by German media company Burda, could never match this firepower.

3. Content platform vs. digital rolodex

LinkedIn evolved into a content platform with a newsfeed, blogging, livestreams, and a learning platform. XING remained a static contact directory. Analysts judged LinkedIn’s offering as “more thoughtful, higher-quality, and better executed across the board”.

4. The fatal strategic misstep

The biggest mistake: XING discontinued its most successful community features in 2022/23 – Groups and Events. The very features that had retained users and differentiated it from LinkedIn.

Instead, it pivoted to becoming a “jobs community” – putting it in direct competition with Stepstone, Indeed, and Glassdoor. One commentator put it bluntly: having “conceded the social network field to LinkedIn and entered an even more competitive space”.

5. The engagement death spiral

When active usage drops, attractiveness for new users drops too – a self-reinforcing downward spiral. XING today has an older, less active user base. For people under 35, the platform is practically irrelevant.

What XING got right

Not everything was wrong. Some of XING’s strengths are especially notable because they were abandoned:

Groups enabled genuine professional communities with substantive exchange – exactly what LinkedIn users complain about missing today. Events bridged online networking and real-world meetings. Kununu, the employer review platform, was a smart acquisition that created real value.

These abandoned strengths are market gaps. Someone will fill them.

Why “just clone it” doesn’t work either

If XING failed with 19 million users, would a direct LinkedIn clone be a better approach? There’s a famous precedent for this strategy: the Samwer brothers.

Oliver, Marc, and Alexander Samwer became millionaires by copying successful US concepts and rapidly deploying them in Europe. Alando (an eBay clone) was sold to eBay for $43 million. CityDeal (a Groupon clone) went to Groupon for $170 million.

But the Samwer model worked under conditions that no longer apply here:

The original wasn’t in the market yet. Alando could clone eBay because eBay didn’t exist in Germany in 1999. LinkedIn is already everywhere – with 28 million DACH users.

Network effects work differently for marketplaces and relationship networks. On eBay, products are interchangeable. On LinkedIn, people are the product. You can clone an auction platform, but you can’t clone millions of professional relationships.

The Samwer model targets exit, not building. A relationship network requires years of organic growth. That’s fundamentally incompatible with a clone-and-sell strategy.

XING shows that a “better LinkedIn” isn’t enough. The Samwers show that a “faster LinkedIn” doesn’t work. What’s left?

The real lesson

What remains is the insight that the next attempt must be fundamentally different. Not building a network against LinkedIn – but changing the way professional networking works altogether.

The answer lies not in better features, but in a different architecture. Not replacing LinkedIn, but making LinkedIn irrelevant.

What that could look like in practice is the subject of the upcoming parts of this series.

Were you an active XING user? What worked, and what triggered the switch? I’d love to hear your experience – info@aina.technology