A: This has been happening since at least macOS Catalina (10.15.x, released 7 October 2019). This did not just start with yesterday’s release of Big Sur, it has been happening silently for at least a year. According to Jeff Johnson of Lap Cat Software, this started with macOS Mojave, which was released on 24 September 2018.
Hmm, now I'm wondering exactly which version of macOS my parents' old, no-longer-supported iMac is running. I want to say it's from... 2011, maybe?
(Next time I update/replace their computer -- which may be imminent, as they're complaining of screen brightness problems that sounds like the backlight failing -- they'll finally be switched to Linux, of course. I didn't quite feel Linux was fire-and-forget enough for me remotely supporting computer-illiterate users back in 2011, but I think it is now.)