I think Fediverse search would be a good thing

I think that fundamentally that argument was ended when the WebIndex was created, and living in a post-WebIndex world basically means that searchability is the way that people approach problems and questions. I like the ability to find old thoughts and I like the ability to find old things. And I think that people who dislike it should have the tools to disable it (robots.txt, nobot, and post-autodeletion). But it would be real nice to remember something from four years ago and search it out of the memory hole.

I think about this in context of like, email. If an inbox decided "I will publish every email sent to me" I think that like, that would be fine. However, if a mail relay did that I would be suspicious as hell.

But I think that most Fediverse accounts act more like inboxes than relays. Obviously, if someone were to setup that email inbox, I would definitely think harder about sending email to it than to my friends. And I think that that change is probably the core of the tension where people worry about the fediverse.

I don't understand the people who dislike a generic search tools - and their arguments have never persuaded me - I don't know what I'm missing.