That's close enough to how I keep my lifestock rabbits to have an opinion, but I do interact with them since they have to go back into their hutches, and to be able to handle them. Also just for enjoying their company. But they are out in the garden during the day, and out on the meadow when I'm there to keep them from raiding neighbours vegetable plot, so they need to be comfortable enough with me for listening when I tell them to go back home (they come home anyway on their own terms eventually, but that's a PITA).
Anyway, it sure is a way to keep rabbits. "Pet" is a random designation, if you're happy just watching them interact and live their lifes without humans intervening too much, that's fine. Drawback is that every situation where you need to handle them will cause stress, and it will be difficult to address health issues. They will not be cuddly, or tame.
Rabbits don't need human interaction. That they interact with you is a reward for the effort you put into the relationship. They are social animals, and would be quite happy on their own, living normal rabbit lives. Of course, you'll need to keep breeding under control (see Australia).
I would consider it one good way to keep meat rabbits, not efficient, not easy, and sure comes with a host of problems, but I'm pretty sure the rabbits would enjoy that way more than the traditional little hutches too often used here (example pic from an old neighbour
). Harvesting them would have it's own considerations, but I'm not going into that here.
From the very first litter from my now 10yo Fury two does escaped, I didn't know much about rabbits back then, they got themself a wild Romeo and lived a good live on a neighbouring demolishing waste recycling vacility, I sometimes met them until I moved away three years later. They did well. I didn't have the heart to put them back in captivity, once they know that kind of freedom imho they'll miss it to some point. Some more, some less.
