the most important function of on call rotation is there to fix problems, not to make announcements to the public. so they surely have the first, but maybe not the second.

Well, maybe that perspective explains why it takes 6+ hours to update any status page then: "welp, shit's broke, better wait for the management team to wake up to tell anyone"

more like: wait for them to decide exactly how to present this to the public.

This is incorrect, the primary job of an on-call rotation is to satisfy customers.

It’s usually much better ROI to publicly acknowledge an issue if the resolution is not going to be single digit minutes, as it massively reduces the incoming query/support burden

yes, but the users of the search engine are not the customers. actually, who would the customers of ddg be?

ad agencies? are they going to get upset if their ads are not visible for a few hours on of many sites where they post them? are they even going to notice?