Based on the informations I can read here, I think it comes from the fact that the engine is not able to give an exhaustive finite number of records matching the query for reasons of response time. A finite pagination style (with number of pages) on the client-side is for now a pure work-around.
From what I understand, some of our users try to use MeiliSearch as a primary datastore or expect a classic finite pagination coming from a SQL database env, when we are here to solve search relevancy problems.
Ideally the search results should be relevant enough so that end-users don't have to click on another page selector button, that's why we advocate to integrate a pagination without number selection. Infinite scroll style or prev/next.
Happy to discuss this further with more context!
Thank you for your feedback :)