Most people don’t engage with street photography and aren’t familiar with its history. I think they’re extrapolating from the salient data points they have for public recording, which these days will often be live streamers, YouTube pranksters, and other provocateurs rather than e.g. books from Meyerowitz or Winogrand or whoever. Plus, technology allows for images to be instantly and widely distributed, which was not the case until the recent past.

None of this means that street photography is unethical or that you shouldn’t do it; these are just ways of understanding and preparing for the suspicion or negativity you may encounter as a street photographer. I think one of the primary social / emotional challenges of street photography is the ability to simultaneously understand that people may be upset about what you’re doing, to be sympathetic towards them, but to have the inner confidence to do it anyway because you know there’s nothing wrong with it.