Same here. I get an email when someone asks to connect but nothing else, and I get that because I want it. They have pretty explicit settings. Just checked and "Introductions and InMail" are only thing enabled. You can also adjust frequency for individual types of messages so you get batch updates.

LinkedIn is generally crappy at what is supposed to be its primary purposes, and they do shady UX stuff. But they have very granular controls for email and push notifications.

I get zero spam to the email I have a LinkedIn account on. I get a shit ton to my gmail, no matter how often I click unsubscribe, send to spam and whatever else.

So both your experience and the grandparent's are possible - they respect you, once you've signed up.

Interesting. That could explain the disparity of experiences being discussed here. I have all my emails in LinkedIn to be discoverable by colleagues, so that means LinkedIn also knows they are specifically me and I'm signed up.

You're not lucky. People are just lazy and like to complain rather than spend the 2 minutes to update their email settings.