You refer to mastering, where the limiter is mostly used in the last stage of bringing your song to a certain level where all of the songs from an album needs to have an even listening experience for the listener.
Nowadays people use to get the levels of their song as loud as possible and/or to get it at the same level of other commercial songs.
Loud is not (always) in the limiter, it is in the (right) use of EQ and compression, and the levels of every individual track in your mix.
So before you touch the limiter, be sure that your levels, EQ and compression are working together and when you turn up, or down, the volume knob of your amp, or monitor, you can still hear everything and it is still a pleasure to listen to
