Alliances are a marketing tool which airlines in general use to provide more connections and more destinations to mainly business and full fare economy travelers than they would otherwise. Depending on how one uses an alliance it can save some money on some routes where two alliance members essentially code share a particular route. i.e. ANA/United on NRT-LAX and a few others. You'll also see UA and some other Star Alliance on a Thai flight. While being in an alliance is no guarantee of success, it also helps ally a weaker airline with other airlines to provide possibly more market share than they might otherwise have.
The airlines could also do code shares as well to increase market and decrease cost but those are usually done on an individual basis and might take more planning.
If you happen to fly apex or less than full fare economy, the star alliance doesn't seem to hold many benefits in terms of travelling to particular destinations since an airline usually only discounts the routes it actually serves. It does make it easier to earn more mileage frequent flyer miles however. Whether you'll ever actually get to use those miles is another question.
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