It doesn't impact me as I use https://encrypted.google.com/ (automagically via the wonderful HTTPS Everywhere firefox plugin.) which doesn't have the instant feature turned on by default.
OTOH, it's a very smart move for G from technical POVs, since their cache hit rate would be much higher as the queries are normalized in greater portion, so that the real impact on their backend is small in comparison (of the overall search volume.)
OTOH, it's a very smart move for G from technical POVs, since their cache hit rate would be much higher as the queries are normalized in greater portion, so that the real impact on their backend is small in comparison (of the overall search volume.)