While very similar to your ordinary waterslide decal, these sets are actually quite unique as they are composed of small amounts of resin attached to a continuous clear decal backing.
Their purpose is to simulate surface details like rivets or weld beads and are to be applied under the coat of paint, basically in the same manner as ordinary waterslide decals but without the need to worry about silvering. As I know of no paint medium that attacks resin, I do not see any reason to worry about damaging the details, although the decal backing might suffer. Paint adherence might be low when painted directly onto these resin details, but as they are black, that might even make it easier to simulate some paint chipping.

Set 88014 contains "rivets" that are organized in a way to offer three different spacings (between 0.4 and 2mm). If you are not happy with the spacing, or have no need for rivets in a perfectly straight line, you can always cut them off and place them individually. Tedious, but feasible.

Set 88017 contains lengths of "weld beads" in straight lines. Having them follow complex curves might prove somewhat more difficult.

While there are probably many other ways to replicate rivets or weld beads, these sets offer a lazy way out, but at a cost, as these sets are far from cheap, but offer enough material to cover a number of AFVs. I believe I will be trying the rivets on a PzKpfw 38(t) soon.