I figured it out, but after nearly giving up on it. There's basically no algorithm to suggest you content like on other sites, so you gotta search for hashtags for stuff you're interested in and follow them. You basically create your own content pushing algorithm by scratch.

I like it, but considering the average twitter user isn't going to get it after having content and people pushed to them by twitter's algorithm, I can see why so many people gave up on it. Then again the people who are actually there seem cool enough, and it's nice to have a microblog and drip feed that isn't drowning in drama and sponsorships. I think I kinda prefer if Masto stays small.

[–] Routhinator@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago

I feel like the strange one in this post because I HATE algorithms. I want chronological order of what I am following, and a chrono feed of everything for discovering new people. I find that Mastodon is great this way so long as you're on a server that hasn't disabled the federated feed.

All the folks complaining about their only being able to discover people/content from things their local instance are following are apparently on instances that only have the local feed turned on, or maybe have never looked at the federated feed.

The official Mastodon app doesn't show federated. Tusky is the way.