Even for individuals, it can be useful. I've taken out loans for vehicles I could technically have afforded to drop the cash for (turning a one-time expenditure into a subscription, basically), but dropping the cash would have in a stroke eliminated my entire cash reserve. I'd rather have a (secured) loan at what was at the time an absurdly low interest rate (in the end I think I paid ~$300 interest total) and still have my reserves around for the entire time, rather than had a window of time I would have been lacking reserves in.

As it happens, I would have been fine just dropping the cash. No major emergencies occurred. But I didn't know that at the time.