Agree with another comment here saying that it's worth it. I've had way better luck reaching out to recruiters over LI than doing applications, and even better luck with two sided marketplaces like AngelList's Alist, Hired, and TripleByte.
You get one free month trial. After that, it’s $30/mo for job seekers. You might stand on the principle that it shouldn’t be necessary, but the price doesn’t seem like a barrier.
(I have no connection to LinkedIn, other than being a free tier member.)
The one month free trial does not mean much. Linkedin flagged me as a recruiter, and refused to let me search for people at one of my previous companies. They insisted I had to be a premium member to search the way I was searching. I signed up for the free month of premium, and I was still flagged as a recruiter, and my searches denied. Linkedin support had difficulty explaining there were two levels of premium, but they finally confirmed I had to pay to be able to search. I paid. Then my searches sort of worked. Out of five specific people, only one was actually in Linkedin. I realize they need money to make their business work. I just did not like the way they extracted the money from me. My free advice: don't search like a recruiter. Whatever that means.