Mundane tents provide shelter, it's why they're on the equipment list.
That's not really true. They provide exactly as much or as little shelter as the DM decides.
There are, AFAIK, and please correct me if I'm wrong, no rules in 5E that say tents provide actual meaningful shelter and I've certainly come across DMs who think they basically don't, and I don't think they were being difficult, just their concept of a medieval tent was that it kept the rain off and not much else. Nothing in the one-line description really challenges this.
Whereas Tiny Hut specifies exactly what it does:
The atmosphere inside the space is comfortable and dry, regardless of the weather outside.
And this is the pattern that
@Vaalingrade is, I believe, referring to.
Magic gives exact details on exactly how it works, and can never fail. You can't screw up casting Tiny Hut and it always gives that perfect shelter. You can't make Goodberries that don't work, nor can they go bad or otherwise fail, and one is all anyone needs. Also each tent fits 2 people, and "Tiny Hut" ain't that tiny because it fits 9 people.
It's okay if you're not interested in Man vs. Nature conflict. Some of us are, and there is shockingly little tedium in the decisions.
Unfortunately 5E doesn't really support that conflict mechanically.
An RPG could, and I'm sure there are 3PP supplements for 5E that do, but 5E doesn't, really. So it becomes a matter of what you can get the DM to agree to. And unfortunately we come back to one of the key problems with all editions of D&D except, arguably, 4E, which is that only casters get to make statements about what's happening, everyone else has to negotiate with the DM. And it doesn't matter how reasonable the DM is, negotiating is simply different from making statements. So you're going to have to argue about how your tents help in this blizzard or whatever, or the spellcaster can just state to the DM that he's casting Tiny Hut, and state what Tiny Hut does, and the DM just has to go along with that, there's no negotiation or discussion. It's just what happens. And if you slightly adversarial DM? It's more of an issue - he may be a fun DM, but if he likes to argue, this problem increases. Because he still can't argue with the caster. He just has to accept it.
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
D&D just hasn't developed rules well in that area, and D&D's absolutist, never-fails approach utility magic lets you state game reality to the DM in a way that nothing else does.
