What is the purpose of “pip install –user …”?

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From pip install --help:

--user  Install to the Python user install directory for your platform. 
        Typically ~/.local/, or %APPDATA%\Python on Windows. 
        (See the Python documentation for site.USER_BASE for full details.)

The documentation for site.USER_BASE is a terrifying wormhole of interesting *NIX subject matter that I don’t understand.

What is the purpose of --user in plain english? Why would installing the package to ~/.local/ matter? Why not just put an executable somewhere in my $PATH?

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