I happen to think the endorsements are part of one of the dark patterns. They get a set of endorsements from someone, because hey, I know that guy/gal and want

I happen to think the endorsements are part of one of the dark patterns. They get a set of endorsements from someone, because hey, I know that guy/gal and want to give them a boost. Then they get to email the person being endorsed, and say "hey, so and so endorsed you, you should put those on your profile!". So far, fairly banal, if cheesy. But I believe they hold them back. They don't just email right then, they save them, or some of them, so they can trickle out the info over time and keep emailing you. The amount of useless email I get from Linked-in is silly. They also do the auto opt-in to new (email intensive) features. Lately a lot of the useless info has been endorsements.