I can see having an open anonymous FTP that was read-only as a way of serving some files that needed to be downloaded and didn't contain any sensitive informati

I can see having an open anonymous FTP that was read-only as a way of serving some files that needed to be downloaded and didn't contain any sensitive information. It's no different from providing a URL to them. Or even a write-only one so people could deposit data. The only real problem is a read-write one where people can use it to exchange information.