I would add to this - teachers and education in general have a specific use for Pinterest. My spouse, and all of the teachers in the k-12 system we are associated with use it for classroom ideas ranging from basic bulletin board decorating to science experiments and literature lessons.

> Who's the target user of Pinterest?

Overwhelmingly their target base is women. If you look at their newer markets around the world, uptake is always dominated by that demographic. Pinterest doesn't release very detailed information on their user demograhpics, however I'd be surprised if it's not 2/3 women or greater.

I entirely agree with the annoyance of the Pinterest image mess in Google image search results, which has been going on for many years now. However there is a legitimate place for Pinterest in terms of what it does. The parent should primarily be annoyed with Google (which is intentionally - they're fully aware of what's going on - filling their image results with Pinterest images), not Pinterest.

You almost certainly have unless you don't interact with women ever.

I can't use it because of it's closed nature, but it has a very good set of image cataloging and sharing features. Add in the valuable network effects and I see why people use it for idea sharing/collaboration.

Purely anecdotal, but pinterest is the only social media network that my mother has ever signed up for. She and her friends use it for recipes and animal photos. I reckon the platform has managed to capture those for whom Facebook is too much of an information barrage, and Instagram is too youth-oriented or "me"-centric. From what I've seen, it's like a more innocuous Tumblr, without all the drama.

I'm a male and occasional user of Pinterest. I used it with my wife to collect and exchange images and ideas about interior design. I have a couple of male friends who have used it in a similar way. It's very good in suggesting visually related images. It is not an image search engine like Google, but rather a tool to organise and share collections of visual references. It seems to work great in areas where Google or DDG image search fail, because it relies on users organizing images, and seems to have a similarity graph for images. There are kinds of images you can easier find on Pinterest than on Google: haircut and fashion ideas, interior and architecture design, gardening and landscaping, some diy items, etc. When you have an idea how something looks, but don't know google keywords to find it.

I understand frustration of Google image search users. But pins in google search results are Google's problem. I switched to DDG myself, and find it more straightforward for keyword based image search.

My wife uses it for everything. From recipes, over things she might want to buy, to stuff she finds interesting.

I made an account on a lark and it's actually nice.

Their image related grouping works way better for the things I'm interested in (art/illustrations) than other sites.

Women.