What's the point of the Gmail API if you can do all of its functions with IMAP or POP3 and not have to have user login oauth, just account and password?

I wanted to read a company email account for certain emails related to our tickets. No one actually accesses this account, and the tool is without a GUI. As such, I can't use the Gmail API. I just remembered there must be a more ordinary way to do this because how does Outlook and other email software work? So python import imaplib and I was done in a few minutes.