Is there any particular reason for why the translation json files are in the public folder?

[Axedyson]

What is the benefit of having the translation json files in public/locales folder vs just ./locales folder? I.e. what is the benefit of making translation files available for everyone to access?

[isaachinman]

The reason is pretty straightforward – so we can download them on the client side if needed. This used less these days, as getStaticProps and getServerSideProps handle the chunking/management of assets for us.

It used to be the case that incoming namespace dependencies needed to be managed manually in getInitialProps.

[Axedyson]

so we can download them on the client side if needed

When would such a scenario occur? I guess you're referring to this:
https://github.com/i18next/i18next-http-backend/tree/master/example/next

But would it be completely okay to just leave the files out of the public folder since I don't think I'll need to download translations on the client side?

[isaachinman]

Yes, of course.