It's hard not to overstate how much of a big deal it is that Mastodon is adopting this kind of search functionality. Mastodon still makes up a vast portion of the Fediverse.
While other platforms have supported this for way longer, having buy-in by the biggest player in the space will probably have a huge effect on standard expectations moving forward.
Seems like some of you guys want a secret club and not a proper forum/platform people use in a meaningful way.
There is absolutely a segment of Mastodon users who behave like they do, and tbh I think there should always be small instances, but i also think this will be a great improvement.