Why use ~/.config for the user data

I am sure that the question has been asked before but I could not find any thread...
Why was it decided to use the directory ~/.config to store the user data?
There does not seem to be a precident or any good reason to do so, I could understand having an actual configuration file there that could point to the actual user data but to put the monolithic database there seems counter-intuitive.

Maybe the question was asked and answered before forum records began.
Super program by-the-way.
w