It's pretty useful, just not as a "sequential container" as people are usually taught. And definitely now with an interface C++ provides. There are two main cases for linked lists:
1. When you need a persistent version of sequential data structure. I.e. you need addition not to change the previous version of list. Very useful in traversals which can fail and/or have multiple routes. C++ list obviously fails here because it's a mutable data structure and each addition is mutation. The proper interface is cons(head, old_list) -> new_list, where old_list exists after new_list is constructed.
2. When you need the values be never moved in memory. Aka intrusive lists. Can be optimized for more cache friendliness by having lists of big chunks of values instead of just lists in some cases. Useful in operating systems and many low level apps. Alternative is usually a vector of pointers which still gives you indirection.
