Probably because old folks know that mermaids are a myth and don’t identify as mermaids ( although ai think I saw a docuseries about a 30ish year old thinking he was one) Where as furries bleed the line between what might be fetish realm, and what might be some people actually believing/thinking they are a furry animal–which would be considered a delusion.
My guess is not a whole lot to the average user, but it would allow for things to still respond when other things have bogged down resources. I am assuming real world applications would be industry like a machine safery stop should always have a quick turn around, and not be delayed by harddrive writes. But may like how they write special OS code for spacecraft where sending and receiving instructions on board has special states and if response isn’t given in timely manner the system can recognize, so malfunctions are prevented. There was an artivle/podcast somewhere abouy how this all had to work in realtime and not be queued waiting