“People” groups everyone together. The plurality of it is implied but without being stated clearly it’s to easy to see them all as one thing.
“Individuals” on the other hand is explicitly pluralized and sets the mind up to remember that each individual is separate and diversified from the rest.
My father used the word individual when speaking of himself instead of person. I’m not a happy individual. As if he weren’t really a person at all. So individual has a negative association for me.