Long story short
Grab a coffee and accept this fact: the more connections you get, the less engagement rate you will get.
That means that LinkedIn helps ultra small creators initally but as soon as you gain traction, you are completely on your own.
Irrelevant connections drag you down - they don’t read your content and that signals the algorithm to supress your posts.
Your follower count is useless if your current audience ignores your recent posts.
You can publish the greatest professional content of all time, but with low quality connections, you lost - these people don’t care about you.
Actionable next steps
Add new RELEVANT connections constantly to keep fresh eyes on your posts.
100 connection requests weekly is optimal for most people, but be aware of LinkedIn bans or warnings if you send too many requests. Adjust accordingly.
Consider purchasing Sales Navigator even 3rd party prospecting tools like Favikon or Apollo to find people that actually care about your content.
Disconnect. Delete your irrelevent connections they won’t even get notified.
But even disconnecting has its limits - 50 daily is safe for most people, but again, watch out for ban notifications.
Your final goal is to get strong relationships, not high, but irrelevant follower count that just drag you, and your content down.