diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/cacher/cacher.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/cacher/cacher.go
index bb74ed3a6ee..7b136aba3d1 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/cacher/cacher.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/cacher/cacher.go
@@ -1303,9 +1303,14 @@ func (c *Cacher) getWatchCacheResourceVersion(ctx context.Context, parsedWatchRe
 // can wait for events without unnecessary blocking.
 func (c *Cacher) waitUntilWatchCacheFreshAndForceAllEvents(ctx context.Context, requestedWatchRV uint64, opts storage.ListOptions) error {
 	if opts.SendInitialEvents != nil && *opts.SendInitialEvents {
-		// TODO(p0lyn0mial): adapt the following logic once
-		//   https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123264 merges
-		if utilfeature.DefaultFeatureGate.Enabled(features.ConsistentListFromCache) && c.watchCache.notFresh(requestedWatchRV) {
+		// Here be dragons:
+		// Since the etcd feature checker needs to check all members
+		// to determine whether a given feature is supported,
+		// we may receive a positive response even if the feature is not supported.
+		//
+		// In this very rare scenario, the worst case will be that this
+		// request will wait for 3 seconds before it fails.
+		if etcdfeature.DefaultFeatureSupportChecker.Supports(storage.RequestWatchProgress) && c.watchCache.notFresh(requestedWatchRV) {
 			c.watchCache.waitingUntilFresh.Add()
 			defer c.watchCache.waitingUntilFresh.Remove()
 		}