Well, with 2019 here, and 2018 gone I've bid adieu to Academia.edu. There isn't one thing that really made me quit, but a variety of factors that really combined to make the network feel "sleazy".  When Academia.edu kicked off it felt like a good idea: a social network for academics to see what each other is working on, to share pre-publication versions of their work, heck even ask for feedback on their current work. For those thinking about applying to a school it was also a good was to peek and see what their potential future professors are working on, and to read their work (especially if they don't have access to expensive library databases).

That was the dream.  What it basically turned into was a constant nag with emails.  Yes, I could turn off their email notifications, but it really annoyed me that I'd get emails saying that my name was mentioned in a paper (probably a citation) and I needed to pay to see what it was.  Google Scholar provides that for free.  The emails also felt like trying to bait you into a service that you do not need, like Classmates.com did (and got sued for!). The thing that annoys me the most though is that whenever I submitted metadata for any of my publications to Academia I could never just provide a URL to the article. Many of the things I've published are open access, which means that people can easily find it.  However, academia required you to upload a copy, which I think was a bad idea on their part.  To be fair, ResearchGate does this too (at least their platform seems a bit better) and it annoys the hell out of me when people request articles that are in OA publications. If they are OA, I don't bother uploading.

Anyway.  With my Academia.edu account killed off, I am wondering if in 2019 I should do the same on ResearchGate...