OK, migrating instances works!
Follow
... except I don't think the list of people I follow has crossed over.
that said, it's the sort of thing I could get over in return for a good community.
@dfilan
follows can be exported via the settings interface, and imported in the same way (maybe your previous instance didn't allow that?)
@niplav I guess I'd have hoped that would happen automatically, but thanks for letting me know. (I only followed like 7 people so I just did it manually)
In general there's a bit of clunkiness around here. E.g. I see a toot I like, click on the account's name, click the follow button, then learn that oops I can't follow someone on the website of their instance, I have to do that on my instance's website.