Why are Scala's `Lists` implemented as linked lists

I always thought that the benefit of linked lists was that you could add or remove items (especially not from the end) without having to copy lots of elements thanks to the beauty of pointers.

However, Scala's List is immutable (at least by default). What is the benefit of having an immutable linked list (because there are definite downsides, e.g. not O(1) element access.)

Thanks!