Difference between S3 public files and static websites

Question

In AWS S3 you can upload a file and make it public. You get a URL to access the same. Also, you can enable "Static Website Hosting". Can someone clarify the difference between these 2 approaches? If I can simply upload my html pages and make them public and access them over HTTP through browsers, why do I need to enable static website hosting ??

Answer 1

Enabling Static Website Hosting on S3 allows you to use a custom domain name, custom error pages, index.html documents for paths that end in /, and 301 redirects.