Well of course I can't guarantee that I would be convinced, even after hearing that but explanation aside
Just because data is publicly scrape-able doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to do so.
Isn't it? If, an instance admin, has the possibility of hiding some data to the public and refuses to do so, it's either:
Because they are fine with the public accessing it
Because they are ignorant and unaware of such a feature, which I honestly don't think is an acceptable excuse (after all users have entrusted this person with their data, ffs)
At the end of the day what I am doing is nothing more than what any user could do by checking the "Moderated servers" section of the about page of any Mastodon instance.
I'm sorry but I'm really am not seeing the logic behind your point.