Networking commodifies relationships

Every handshake has become a transaction. Every conversation, a negotiation. Professional networking has successfully transformed the fundamental human capacity for connection into a marketplace where relationships are inventory and authenticity is marketing strategy.

The extraction mechanism

Networking operates on a simple premise: people are resources to be accessed when needed. The “networking professional” catalogues contacts by utility—who can provide introductions, funding, opportunities, information. Each relationship carries an implicit exchange rate.

This isn’t friendship with benefits. It’s friendship as benefits.

The language reveals everything. We “leverage” relationships, “tap into” networks, “mine” connections for value. These are extractive metaphors applied to human beings. The vocabulary of resource extraction has colonized the vocabulary of human connection.

Strategic authenticity theater

Modern networking demands the performance of genuine interest while maintaining transactional intent. The result is “strategic authenticity”—a calculated simulation of spontaneous human warmth.

LinkedIn becomes the stage for this performance. Posts about “authentic networking” proliferate, teaching people how to appear genuinely interested in others while systematically cataloguing their utility. The advice is always the same: show real interest, ask meaningful questions, provide value first.

But this manufactured authenticity defeats itself. When everyone is strategically authentic, authenticity becomes another networking tactic. The simulation overtakes the reality it was meant to replicate.

The reciprocity trap

Networking culture weaponizes reciprocity—the fundamental human tendency to return favors. Every coffee meeting, introduction, or piece of advice creates an invisible debt ledger.

Professional relationships become systems of mutual obligation rather than voluntary association. The networking professional doesn’t give freely; they invest. Every favor is a deposit in an account they intend to withdraw from later.

This transforms genuine generosity into strategic positioning. The difference between helping someone and “networking with” someone is the presence of this calculation. One enriches both parties; the other depletes both while appearing beneficial.

Value assignment hierarchy

Networking creates explicit hierarchies of human worth based on professional utility. The venture capitalist receives different treatment than the administrative assistant. The celebrity entrepreneur gets immediate responses; the mid-level manager gets delayed acknowledgment.

These value assignments become self-reinforcing. Those deemed “high-value” receive more attention, creating more opportunities, increasing their perceived value. Those deemed “low-value” receive less attention, reducing their opportunities, confirming their lower status.

The networking environment sorts humans into categories: assets, liabilities, and irrelevant. This sorting mechanism operates below conscious awareness but shapes every interaction.

The commodification cascade

When relationships become commodities, every aspect of human connection gets monetized.

Vulnerability becomes “thought leadership.” Personal struggles become “authentic content.” Life experiences become “personal brand stories.” The boundary between private self and professional resource dissolves.

Social media amplifies this dynamic. Every personal milestone—marriage, children, career changes—becomes networking content. The wedding announcement doubles as a LinkedIn update. The career transition becomes a “gratitude post” thanking valuable connections.

Networking culture introduces efficiency metrics to friendship. The optimal network size, the ideal mix of strong and weak ties, the correct frequency of contact maintenance. Human connection gets subjected to optimization frameworks designed for supply chains.

This optimization mindset corrupts the fundamental nature of relationships. Genuine connections develop organically, unpredictably, inefficiently. They resist optimization because their value emerges from precisely the qualities that optimization destroys—spontaneity, serendipity, genuine mutual interest.

The authenticity paradox

The harder networking culture tries to preserve authenticity, the more thoroughly it destroys it. “Authentic networking” advice proliferates: be genuinely interested, develop real relationships, provide value without expectation.

But this advice treats authenticity as a tactic rather than a state of being. You cannot strategically be genuine. You cannot systematically be spontaneous. You cannot professionally be personal.

The very attempt to optimize for authenticity guarantees its absence.

Network effects on society

As networking culture spreads beyond professional contexts, it transforms all social interaction. College students network with professors for recommendations. Parents network with other parents for opportunities. Even dating apps optimize for “network effects.”

Society becomes a vast professional conference where everyone is simultaneously selling and shopping. The distinction between professional and personal relationships erodes not because work becomes more personal, but because personal relationships become more professional.

The correlation trap

Successful people have large networks. Therefore, large networks create success. This causal confusion drives the networking industry.

But the causation likely runs in reverse. Success creates larger networks as more people seek connection with successful individuals. The network is often an effect of success, not its cause.

This misunderstanding leads to the networking treadmill—endless relationship building in pursuit of success that the relationships themselves cannot deliver.

Alternative: Genuine connection

Real relationships form through shared experiences, mutual respect, and genuine interest in each other’s wellbeing. They develop slowly, unpredictably, without agenda.

These connections create value precisely because they aren’t designed to create value. They emerge from authenticity rather than strategy. They strengthen through mutual care rather than mutual utility.

The irony is that genuine relationships often prove more “useful” than strategic networking relationships. But their usefulness is a byproduct, not a purpose.

The choice

We can treat people as people or as resources. We can develop relationships or build networks. We can be authentic or perform authenticity.

These aren’t different approaches to the same goal. They’re fundamentally different goals that produce fundamentally different outcomes.

Networking commodifies relationships by design. The only way to escape this commodification is to choose connection over networking, authenticity over strategy, people over resources.

The cost of this choice is efficiency. The benefit is humanity.

The networking industry will continue expanding as long as people believe relationships can be optimized. The question is whether we want to live in a world where human connection is just another market to be conquered.