If you're using a terminal multiplexer to handle scrollback, you can navigate the output using your usual pager whether you explicitly invoked it in the pipeline or not. And that leaves it searchable in your scrollback history even after you've gone on to run several more commands, unlike if you pipe it directly to a pager.

Additionally, if you're using a nicer colorizing pager, like bat, it'll automatically send the output to your pager for you when it detects that the output wouldn't fit on screen.

For both of those reasons, I almost never use `less` directly on a file.