[lambdaxyzw]

netcat+mkfifo does the actual transfer with TCP - so there's no tunneling involved. This solution tunnels tcp through file abstraction, so it works significantly differently.

As for the uses, see the three author listed. For example, by using a file share as transport you may evade firewall.

[zamadatix]

  mkfifo /mnt/shared/connection
  nc localhost 12345 > /mnt/shared/connection < /mnt/shared/connection

Seems the same?