So what's the difference between plotted and printed artwork?

A common source of confusion that I experience when posting my artwork on social media is: _why?_ Why use a plotter when you could use a printer? It's slower. Less exact. More expensive. It fails, far too often. Inkjet printers became ubiquitous in the 1980s because they solved nearly all of these problems. So why are artists obsessed with pen plotters?