What Use Is An F-call?

What use is an F-call? Recently there was a contest that looked interesting. I participate in contests as a way to speak to many stations, to add countries to my DX list and to learn about how other people run their station. It's a great opportunity to have access to a large number of stations in a short period of time. As part of my preparation for this particular contest, I spent some time reading the rules, so that when I got on air, I'd know what to expect as the exchange, what the other station would say and what they expected in return, to learn what the point scoring system was and what I could expect during the contest. The points were allocated in such a way that contacts were only scored between me and the country that originated the contest, in this case, if I made a contact with a station in Canada or the United States, there'd be a point to be made, but if I made a contact with Venezuela, or with Kenya, or the United Arab Emirates, there'd be no points. Just so I'm not mistaken, this is not a