The idea is cool with all the apps interconnecting, but where do I go to actually see this in practice. Does the cross communication only work on platforms like Mbin/piefed, or am I not seeing something.
I keep hearing thanks to activity pub posts here can be seen and replied to from elsewhere, but I haven’t seen it.
Join a big instance that’s been around for awhile and blocked by the fewest amount of other servers
The biggest Lemmy instance still isn’t going to let you follow Mastodon or Pixelfed accounts.
Yes, Lemmy accounts can only follow/subscribe to groups (besides Lemmy also mbin, piefed + also Peertube), but not individual accounts. A Lemmy account can only communicate with individual accounts if they write something in a community. That is one of the aims of mbin, to connect them: The structure of communities /magazines + a microblog feed.
Or self host. Best federated experience, your own.