I understand this is not inherently presented here as any particular solution or competitor, although its presence here elevates it as such, so why use this or do this instead of using the library at thenounproject.com ?
One of the challenges I often find is in licensing/copyright. Some Creative Commons attribution requirements can be a pain, for instance, rather than something that's simply MIT like my code. I don't mind a license file in a repository, but anything that says I have to include a credit line somewhere in the end product is off-putting. Some places offer free icons, but if you modify it... say, by changing the color of the icon or converting it's format, you may be violating their terms.
So I'm always up for a clearly-defined set of MIT-licensed icons.
This is the only reason necessary, really. Yeah, every website could use the same amazing icon set but it would get samey after a while. Having some different icon sets to pick from is nice.
