Enabling MySQL 4-byte support

I had trouble updating/grading my nextcloud. I needed to add MySQL 4-byte support.
The insctructions in https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/16/admin_manual/configuration_database/mysql_4byte_support.html confused me.

I did exactly what was instructed. Without success…
Server version: 10.1.38-MariaDB-0+deb9u1 - Debian 9.8
Certainly younger than 8.0.

But only after I added the older than 8.0 lines in 1.b I succeeded.

This is confusing, was this missing from my version, should it have been there already? If so it may need to be added to the manual to check if it is there or not…