Why is LinkedIn trying to drive their userbase away from engaging on the site?
Because games will keep them haha
Because linkedin's value proposition is to make you look good (superficially) to future employers.
Nobody wants to interact on linkedin, they want to look impressive. This accomplishes that.
Exactly. Those churning out such posts on LinkedIn, would very much prefer if other people did not even carefully read the actual content, but rather simply assumed “Wow, this person is capable of generating a wall of text day in and day out, he/she must be a subject-matter expert and have great English skills”.
If I were a LinkedIn employee. Just to sabotage the site, I’d propose features like this which may seem appealing to management but create an awful user experience for everyone.