While we may, by default, want to use ?rwx------ for all files (full access by user owner, no access to group owner or others), this may not be a practical choice.
First of all, not all files are actually executable files. As a result, marking all files as executable can lead to unnecessary problems.
Of even more concern are some programs that may need access to a user’s folder. For example, apache2 (the web server program) need access to the public_html folder to serve files from that folder. Because apache2 is run as the www-data user (and not root), it does not have access to elements in a folder marked drwx------. This is, unless, apache2 is configured to use the user permission module.