SETI would be incapable of detecting our own radio footprint (with just a very few exceptions) even from the closest of stars. For stars much further, it takes so much time that the sender and likely his civilization is long dead before the signal even arrives. We have only recently begun to develop techniques using specialized telescopes that will allow use to detect signs of metabolic life on other planets. No primitive radio beacons are needed for such detections, so why expect them to be used?
We have only been able to use radio technology for a little over 100 years. Who can say that we won't discover some other much better long distance communication technology within the next 100 or 1000 years? What arrogance to think that other intelligent life forms, should they exist, would be limited to using our current ways to communicate. It also is quite a leap of faith, if not unwarranted self regard, to assume that any such beings would even want to communicate with us.
No it’s not. Number one: Assuming that we are on a path to increased technology and discovery, eventually our disposable income will become gargantuan. This will be used to reach out, and even a small percentage will be enormous 10k years from now.
Number two: AI. Artificial intelligence will propel our interstellar discovery, and it will be self-sustaining. In other words, we won’t design craft, AI will design itself. And when AI craft arrive at a new system, it will begin replicating with available materials new starships. ALL OF WHICH will multiply upon reaching the next system. These new craft will be better than the last because AI in the future will be learning as it expands. It’s easy to imagine our own AI created craft returning in a million years and finally proving that there is intelligent life “out there,” us.