The fact that a common operational mode is unfathomable to you does not make it useless to others.
The topic comes up regularly in HN posts and comments.
I've taken my own stab at it: tabs are a preferable, readily-utilised, if cumbersome, form of state management that's otherwise lacking from web browsers.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17376317
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9638702
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/256lxu/tabbed_...