The freedom to not have to jump through ridiculous hoops like compiling from source just to use an application the distro didn't deem worthy of inclusion in their repo.
How did you come to this conclusion? Did you request the package be included in the distro you use? If so, and it wasn't provided, provide the bug report/feature request link ...
And it isn't insecure. If I trust the developer and get the software from them, it's just as good as trusting a repo maintained by random internets who have been known to not only not keep software in the repo up to date, but actually introduce vulnerabilities that weren't there before!