It's a devil's bargain. The value is in the network, so the real job of the tool is to be as frictionless and low overhead as possible. Conventional wisdom says you can't build a business model around that, so you get products that become bloated with overhead for the end user.
Hmm I'm in marketing/sales and spend a lot on LinkedIn. That's a simple business decision because it saves me time and makes way more than it costs. The more friction and anti-user crap they have, the weaker that business case becomes as it a) slows me down and b) hinders activity and growth of the network. They have great business models around very highly targeted ads, sales prospecting, market intelligence, and recruitment - each of which are highly monetizable in their own right. I don't really see how a killer app for any of those would be improved by bloat.
