For example, I once had a lot of automated alerts sent by SMS to my phone for the early rollout of an IoT device I was working on. My regular unlimited voice and data plan was very cheap but only included a couple hundred SMS per month and I was going to blow past that during alpha testing, so I got a SIM from an MVNO with unlimited messaging for ~$5/mo and sent all the alerts to that number and had the company pay that bill, which was a nice way of isolating the expense as well.
It's also great if you are an international jewel thief and need a second line for taunting the Interpol agents hot on your trail without having to add them to your friends & family plan.
It also a diversification for telco shenanigans. Just to give an example, Singapore regulator just ordered telcos to stop accepting incoming SMS from entities not registered with local regulator. This affected a lot of overseas services OTP.
People who travel a lot usually have their "native" sim as the eSIM and just grab whatever prepaid they can get for the country they're travelling in. Easiest way to avoid insane roaming fees.
I alternate between a Google Fi sim, and an AT&T business.