What does a "playlist.m3u" file do?

I downloaded an MP3 album. It has 18 tracks, cover art, and a playlist.m3u file.
I'm a beginner with iTunes. I understand the concept of creating a custom playlist in iTunes, but why would a playlist.m3u file be included with an MP3 album? The songs are already tagged in the order they would be on the CD ... and gap/gapless info is embedded into the MP3 tracks ... so I don't understand what info might be in this playlist.m3u file.
What is a playlist.m3u used for? Is it Windows-specific? Does it do anything in iTunes for Mac? Can I just delete this thing?

Back to my original question, if anyone else wants to help me ... I do understand the concept of a custom playlist - creating a list of songs, sort of like a custom mix CD - but why would a playlist.m3u file be included with an MP3 album when the songs are intended by the artist to be in a certain order and gap information is already embedded into the MP3 files? Is the playlist.m3u files there to have the folder of MP3s play in any way differently than if the playlist.m3u file was not there? Is it to cause the songs to play back in an alternate order?
If anyone wants to post a google-link to an answer to this specific question, I'd be happy to read it. I can't find a specific answer anywhere. All I find are general definitions of playlist.m3u files which still don't tell me what difference they make in an album folder.

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Message was edited by: Paul Rybarczyk1
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What does a "playlist.m3u" file do?

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