As I see it, the only use case where linked lists are superior to other types of lists, like, perhaps, ArrayList in java or vector/deque in C++, is if the following conditions are met:
1: you care about ordering - often you don't care about ordering and in that case, there is no need for a linked list because you can achieve O(1) insertion & removal then too: insertion can always be at the end, removal can be a "swap with end element, remove end element" operation.
2: inserting and/or removing from the middle of the list is a common operation, if it is not a common operation, then the added cost of doing so with a vector may still be outweighed by a vectors other advantages
3: you do not require random access - lists do not provide random access and lookup is O(n). At the expense of additional complexity in implementation and more memory overhead, you could reduce lookup to, OTOH, O(log n) by using a skip-list
4: you do not iterate through the list often - if you do, you are likely going to blow the cache and mess up prefetching due to poor cache locality. Iterating through an array-based data structure can be much faster in this case.
I would say that for a list to make sense, you MUST have 1 and 2 and probably should have 3. 4 is optional, but if true, should make you consider if there might not be a more suitable data structure. In my own personal experience, this is rare. In fact, in my own personal experience, usually, code either does not require 1 or requires 1 but not 2 - either way, lists are not the appropriate data structure in those cases.
1: you care about ordering - often you don't care about ordering and in that case, there is no need for a linked list because you can achieve O(1) insertion & removal then too: insertion can always be at the end, removal can be a "swap with end element, remove end element" operation.
2: inserting and/or removing from the middle of the list is a common operation, if it is not a common operation, then the added cost of doing so with a vector may still be outweighed by a vectors other advantages
3: you do not require random access - lists do not provide random access and lookup is O(n). At the expense of additional complexity in implementation and more memory overhead, you could reduce lookup to, OTOH, O(log n) by using a skip-list
4: you do not iterate through the list often - if you do, you are likely going to blow the cache and mess up prefetching due to poor cache locality. Iterating through an array-based data structure can be much faster in this case.
I would say that for a list to make sense, you MUST have 1 and 2 and probably should have 3. 4 is optional, but if true, should make you consider if there might not be a more suitable data structure. In my own personal experience, this is rare. In fact, in my own personal experience, usually, code either does not require 1 or requires 1 but not 2 - either way, lists are not the appropriate data structure in those cases.