The reduce motion explanation on Mac:
https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25204?locale=en_US

It intents to reduce the animation on UI.

Ah, yes, as it turns out, the behavior of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?format=default&id=1365045 smooth scrolling and https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=468754 not smooth scrolling is not impacted by enabling or disabling In MacOS System Preferences > Accessibility > Display, check Reduce Motion.

So it is a bug of a different sort. The question then becomes what the appropriate behavior would be. Much as I am discomfited by smooth scrolling, the issue now appears that https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?format=default&id=1365045 and https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=468754 behave inconsistently with one another.

If the content impacted by the Find function is considered part of the UI, then the correct behavior would be for the scrolling to conform to the prefers-reduced-motion setting. That is, if Mac OS has Reduced Motion checked, then https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?format=default&id=1365045 would no longer smooth scroll. If Reduced Motion is unchecked, then https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=468754 would now smooth scroll.

If the content impacted by the Find function is not considered part of the UI, then the correct behavior would be governed by Add support for CSS prefers-reduced-motion media feature https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=722548.

My understanding of the emerging best practice is for all content and UI to respect the user's motion setting. That is, from a end-user's point of view, either I'm okay with motion or I'm not and I don't care whether it is UI, content, or some hybrid like  the Find button.

That said, the matter of Find respecting prefers-reduced-motion would likely be a separate, but related issue. I'll wait to see the disposition of Find in page smooth scrolls in Mac contrary to Reduce Motion setting for some pages https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=882197 before filing a new issue.

Marking as assigned to take this out of triage queue, feel free to change if needed.

Just on a hunch, I took a look at the CSS for https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?format=default&id=1365045 for transition rules (going on the idea that Chrome's Find feature behaves as content rather than as UI). I do see some transitions, both motion and none forms. The motion rules in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/static/v20180910.1/skins/standard/global.css that appear most likely to have intersections with Chrome's Find UI are:

button, input[type=submit], input[type=button], #commit, #commit_top, #header .btn, #header input[type=submit] {
...
    -moz-transition: all linear 100ms;
    -webkit-transition: all linear 100ms;
    transition: all linear 100ms;
...
}

This rule is repeated for :hover and :active versions.

If I'm correct that this is the culprit, the title for issue 882197 might better be "Chrome Find UI incorrectly inherits CSS styles from content".

 Issue 894959  has been merged into this issue.

I think this is a dupe? https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=702966 

NO? AFAIK this is a contrary issue. For Mac find-in-page already smooth scrolls, and this issue is about to NOT smooth scroll when Mac's system preference is set to avoid animation use system-wide.
Issue 702966 on the other hand is about (whether) to ENABLE smooth find on other platforms.

@comment 12: Yes sorry, not a duplicate, just related. Strange though because bokan says they'll only be doing it for Android, but you say Chrome for Mac already smooth scrolls here? And robliao said Safari for macOS v10.1.1 doesn't smooth scroll. I guess they just added this recently to both Safari for Mac and Chrome for Mac aswell? 

Gmail Error 007 
https://www.gmailtechnicalsupportnumbers.com/blog/gmail-server-error-007/

@13: Ah, I misunderstood too :p
The 'smooth find' here is really some particular pages' CSS property, "scroll-behavior: smooth", it induces smooth scrolling on all supported browser platforms (and Safari does not).

The instanced bugzilla page in the original report above also makes find-in-page to smooth scroll on Chrome for Windows.
And this issue is about Chrome for Mac should respect Mac's system preference to avoid animations as a priority, even if a page specifies in CSS that it wants smooth scrolling.