What's the point of the Scandinavian defense?

any sort of advantage*

The idea is to prevent white from getting a strong pawn center. If white tries to stick to it by playing 2. e5, the reply is 2. ... c5. It is true that this comes with a loss of tempo and therefore the Scandinavian is not the most common opening. It is provocative and some players may feel uncomfortable after their e-pawn has been eliminated. As this is not a common opening, there is not as much theory involved as with many other openings and if you happen to know it, you may have a slight advantage over your opponent.

The intermediate check Qe6+ is an option and it forces white to react but it still leaves the queen somewhat open and blocks the light squared bishop (Qe5 is worse as the developing Nf3 forces another queen move). I think Qa5 is the most studied queen retreat (pins the knight after the d-pawn moves), though Qd8 is also an option.

Still one point: The Scandinavian is probably the most forcing way to avoid a closed center. If your opponent likes closed pawn formations (e.g. Advance French) and you do not, then the Scandinavian is an option to avoid closing the center.

Ok, thank you for your answer

Qa5, Qd6 and Qd8 are the main Queen moves after Nc3. You should be pleased to see Qe6+ as this is simply misplacing the Queen. This queen move after Nc3 does not in fact lose a tempo for black - white also had to use a tempo on exd5 and now white has developed 1 piece (the knight), and black 1 piece (the Queen). Probably the best plan for white is 3.Nf3 leaving the Queen floating in the middle of the board, it will be forced away at some point. The Scandinavian is quite simple for black - play in some order Nc6, Bg4, Nf6, e6, 0-0-0 develop quickly, pressure the d4 pawn if white plays d4. Good for blitz/bullet games for this reason. In longer/daily games there is some very forcing stuff that white can do if he knows it which should at least give white a more comfortable game. 

If you can show me an opening where Black gets an advantage against best play by White, please do so. But in many variations Black gets a very stable position without obvious weaknesses,.The pawn structure often is similar to a Slav formation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure#Slav_formation), which is hard to crack.

@Sred Of course black can't gain concrete advantage against white in the opening (unless white doesn't play accurately), I just couldn't think of a better way to formulate the sentence.

Got it now.

@GGuessMyName, another point is that White doesn't have as many sensible options as in other e4 openings and there are not as many sharp lines. So, not as much theory to learn.

Anything that has been played by Carlsen to beat Caruana at the Olympics should be considered serious.

Your notion of seriousness is different from mine.

That being said, it's certainly a rare opening at top level.

If you like to think so, it's fine. But why do you think it doesn't try to equalize?

1.e4 d5 has featured in over 33,000 master level games according to the chess.com database. Less popular than c5, c6, e5, e6, d6 and g6. So you could say it is the least favoured of all the 'normal' responses to 1.e4.

It's a useful backup opening to have as a Caro-Kann player; very similar structures.

@PurtinGravy K, I can see your point. At my modest level it's a fine opening.

WDYT about a repertoire based on Scandi and Semi Slav in terms of learning efficiency?

Hey, you are talking to a 1...g6 player.

Not with the same amount of lazyness.