Apparently, someone was told that it is rude to subscribe to / follow someone you do not personally know. What? Where is this person from? From day one, the Fediverse (and same for Twitter!) has been a place where you subscribe to someone because you want to see their posts in your stream. If we could only subscribe to people we personally knew in real life, the Fediverse would be still be Evan and Stav.
It does bother me that so many new users have no interest in or respect for the history of the place where they post. Making up such "rules" on the spot is not good.