Are personal Mastodon instances bad for discovery?

Link: Are personal Mastodon instances bad for discovery? by Michael Harley. Published Sun 27 Nov 2022.

Michael asks: How do you #federate a tiny #Mastodon instance?

Michael asks: How do you #federate a tiny #mastodon instance?

My first idea to address this was to create a follow account on my instance. I used that account to follow the admin accounts on the 15 biggest instances. If my understanding of federation is correct, then that means my instance is now aware of those instances and those instances are aware of mine. That is, my instance is now federated with all those instances. I’m skeptical that my understanding is correct though as when I look at my federated timeline, I’d expect it to be much busier than it actually is if I’m seeing activity from the 15 largest Mastodon instances.