This is why you might click on a person's profile and see *nothing*; because our instance didn't *know* about that account until you clicked it, and won't start feeding us that person's toots until you or someone else on our instance follows them, forcing us to federate with that account.
Thankfully, there are things we can do! On my end as admin, I can join what are called Relays, which will federate us with other instances, sending our toots to each other automatically. 4/7