Before fractional shares were a thing, it made the stock more attainable for "regular" investors. It can also change up your ranking in indices like the Dow Jones that are price weighted

It used to be difficult to transact in orders of less than 100 shares. There's still a bias against 'odd lots', at exchanges, but market makers love small orders because they tend to be retail orders and it's better to trade with retail than institutions generally.

Trading under $10 is discouraged by the exchanges. Trading above $100 is discouraged because 100x $100 is $10,000, which is a lot of money. Targetting about $25 was the norm.

Single lot sales and now fractional sales makes a lot of that less necessary, and so more companies have avoided doing it.

But there used to be 'low priced stock funds' which would buy stocks around $10 and sell them around $25 and do pretty well.