I think we should make them networked, but I'm planning to wait for the next Bevy release to let them "bake":
When James initially implemented observers they had their own separate concept but Cart made the decision that in the long run it makes sense to unify them. Relevant PR: https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/pull/13953. We are just in a bit of an awkward half-way state.
There are plans for statically differentiating between an "entity event/observer" and a "target-less event/observer" (see cart's comment under this video).
I think we should make them networked, but I'm planning to wait for the next Bevy release to let them "bake":
After stabilization it will be more clear how they fit in networking.