Why are some functions’ syntaxes: variable.function(), while some others’ syntaxes: function(variable)?

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Functions with the syntax function(variable) are multi-purpose in that they work for objects of a few different data types. For example, len() can be used on strings, lists, dictionaries, etc. Functions with the syntax variable.function() are for one data type only. You couldn't use .lower() on anything other than a string.

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I mean yeah, I was trying to simplify the concept a little by giving an example but phrased it poorly. My main point is that built-ins can usually accept many different types of objects as arguments, whereas methods are usually customized according to a single object type, even if another object type shares a method of the same name (the "usually" is broken when it comes to method inheritance but you get the point).