opt-in search

This is what I don’t understand: When people mark a post as public and discoverable, meaning Google and Bing and such can already find and index it, why would one need to opt-in to making it available via Mastodon search? Isn’t that what Unlisted is already for?

It’s been awhile since I made a new account on a Mastodon instance, but is search engine indexing enabled by default? If it isn’t, then that would probably be part of why this is being made opt-in for Mastodon search, as there’s been a vocal portion of folks on Mastodon opposed to search across the board.

Even if search engine indexing was enabled by default, y’know those vocal folks probably disable it ASAP and would be making a fuss if this update went & enabled Mastodon search by default. Which, well, why post publicly at all if the concern’s related to privacy or not being bothered by internet randos, but 🤷‍♀️