[steveBK123]

Correct. The good answers assume the askers actually want ACCURATE estimates. In many many cases this is not true at all.

I've worked for guys that shop around and give the work to the lowest estimator, even when they have a track record of low-balling and then running 5x over their estimates.

In other scenarios, to your point, optimistically low estimates are used as a political tool by product/management to wrestle some task/responsibility from some other team in the org.

Inevitably what I see again and again is everyone takes (and fights devs for) low-ball estimates, which assume the happy path of "nothing can go wrong". They are then happy to hear & communicate to clients the various excuses when each "downside surprise" is discovered through the development process. Of course the estimate high-baller has built in time for these as theres rarely positive surprises that make tasks faster, and few tasks are surprise free.