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I believe the .DS_Store files are just a fallback so if you are accessing files on a network share or on a file system that doesn't support extended attributes

by swift 10y ago

I believe the .DS_Store files are just a fallback so if you are accessing files on a network share or on a file system that doesn't support extended attributes like FAT32, those features can still work. The native implementation on HFS+ uses the extended attributes.

0x0 10y ago
.DS_Store is where finder saves the folder ui configuation (icon positions, list mode, etc) and these files are present even on native HFS+ (although "hidden" by default like any other unix file name starting with ".") There were some reports online that the future APFS in the 10.12 betas didn't leave .DS_Store files around.