LinkedIn is killing off a freelance audio feature that you may have forgotten about

Remember during the COVID-19 pandemic when live audio was suddenly everywhere? This trend was briefly popularized by Clubhouse before every other online platform copied the feature.

Since then, live audio has largely become a footnote to a strange time when we were all stuck at home at the same time with nothing to do and listened to hour-long streams of strangers talking to each other as entertainment. Now LinkedIn, which was late to the live audio party , has chosen to end its private live audio events.

In , the company says it will no longer support native audio events starting next month. Users will stop being able to create new events starting December 2, and previously scheduled events will no longer work after December 31. Instead, the company is “integrating” audio events with its live streaming feature, LinkedIn Live. LinkedIn Live, however, requires creators of third-party tools to set up the stream. So while audio-only streaming will still be able to exist on LinkedIn, it will take a few extra steps.

LinkedIn isn’t the only company that can replace courses with live audio. , , and all shut down their pandemic-era live audio productions. Even Clubhouse (which, yes, still exists) in last year’s format. The feature, however, is strong on the X despite a few technicalities.