Use cases
The Mac stays where it is. You reach it from your iPhone, or from a browser on a computer that isn't yours.
Watch on the TV. Keep using your phone.
The Mac is in the other room. AirPlay from that Mac to the TV in front of you, then pause, skip, and pick something else from the phone. The show is playing from the Mac, so the phone is still yours. AirPlay from the phone itself takes the phone over for as long as the video is on the TV. You can't text, or look something up, until you stop it.
Plug your phone into a monitor
Add a keyboard and a mouse. The screen in front of you is the Mac's desktop: your apps, your files, the accounts already signed in. The phone is the connection. The computer you're using is the one at home.
Text from a work computer
Your Mac already has your iMessages and texts. On a work computer, open them in the browser and answer from there. They stay on your Mac.
Get to your files
The document in your home folder, the photo you didn't sync, the project you were halfway through. Open it right where it is.
Accounts that are already signed in
Email, notes, banking, your password manager. They're already signed in on your Mac, so you never have to log in on someone else's computer.
Stay on your home network
Your Mac is on your home Wi-Fi, so you can reach the printer, the file server, the router page, or the cameras that only work at home.
A computer that isn't yours
A work PC, a library computer, a hotel lobby. Open a browser page. Nothing gets installed, and nothing stays behind when you close it.
Keep work and personal apart
Personal things stay on your Mac instead of spreading across a work laptop. Close the tab and it's gone from that machine.
Something you left running
A download, an export, a backup, a render. See if it finished, or stop it, without walking back to that room.
A program that only exists on the Mac
A license tied to that machine, a local tool, a window you left open. There is no phone version. Open it on the Mac, from wherever you are.
The Mac is waiting on a click
A permission dialog, an update, a prompt that says it needs you. Answer it from the phone instead of going to the other room.