Also a great way around code that tries to block you from hitting resources local to the box. Lots of code out there in the world blocking the specific address "127.0.0.1" and maybe if you were lucky "localhost" but will happily connect to 127.6.243.88 since it isn't either of those things. Or the various IPv6 localhosts.

Relatedly, a lot of systems in the world either don't block local network addresses, or block an incomplete list, with 172.16.0.0/12 being particularly poorly known.