I think lately there has been this concern from many folks that copycats are taking away some market share from indiehackers. A post was made on indiehackers as well recently related to this. So I feel that people would be hesitant to share. I personally have come across couple of indie hackers who stopped "building in public".
We regularly had competitors running negative SEO campaigns back when that was easier, we had review bombs, DDOS attacks, network incursions, you name it. Building out of the public's eye doesn't really stop that once you are actually operating, your competitors will find you.