Public... i would say yes.
The first 2 Servers we played at, we just made our first steps and always when we get spottet most valuable stuff get stolen.
Or you simply get killed by pitchfork guys.
And you just cant always carry all iron or other crafting stuff.
Its hard to get startet.
I dont think its always like that, but it seems to be very common sadly.
As always, stealing is easyer than work for yourself
And you cant safe anything really so far..
After the buttheads start to annoy ppl and lift stuff into the air where its getting unreachable, they fixed it... but now you cant even put chests anymore inside of a house to "save" it.
Only way i see is play on a private server with a nice community and no gm cheating etc..
p.s.
with private i did mean locked servers where not everyone can just join and troll