I find them to be useful if I'm dealing with a skeevy online retailer or dodging a autorenew subscription
Eh, those are more reasonable Visa/MC branded cards that work like regular debit cards. I think we're mostly talking about the store-specific ones, like Google Play, Home Depot, Lowe's, Amazon, or other same-as-cash stored-value but-it-only-works-at-one-store cards, because none of those include
any fucking protections whatsoever, are less scrutinized than the "main payment network" variants, and are much easier to conduct scams with.
At least if someone steals the numbers from a prepaid Visa/MC and drains it without your consent, you've got recourse through the issuing bank thanks to the payment network requiring it. If some shithead rips off a Google Play gift card you bought last week, Google will cheerfully tell you to fuck off and have a nice day.
The per-store gift card thing started as a "convenient" way for stores to keep your money even if you return a product for a refund -- "sorry, we don't do cash refunds anymore, but we can give you a gift card with equivalent value on it!" That way you can't take your money back and run across the street to a competitor -- if you want that value, it's locked to that store and you have to go dive back into their aisles to find something else to spend it on. And of course, practically nothing is identically priced to whatever your credit amount was, so to avoid leaving $0.35 on a card you'll never use again, you'll have to spend a little bit more in total than the actual refund, meaning even when you "redeem your refund," you're still giving them a bit more money.
Naturally said cards "auto-expired" over time until California did the one decently pro-citizen thing they've done in decades and declared that bullshit illegal, so up until California did that, you were not only stuck shopping at the same store to get your cash back from a refund, you were on a timetable to do it, else you'd just lose it entirely. Even with auto-expiry disappearing, it's still on you not to physically misplace or lose the card, forget you have it to spend, or leave it at home when you go shopping. Just lots of obstacles to get in between you and your cash.
Fuck gift cards right in the ass. At least the store brand ones. If you really need to give somebody cash in lieu of a thoughtful gift (nothing wrong with that), buy a prepaid Visa/MC they can spend anywhere. Spending that extra $3.50 for that kind of card is more thoughtful than a store-branded gift card anyway. Just don't get them an Amex card -- that's a bit nose-in-the-air and lots of vendors don't accept it anyway.
