OK, I apologize for my tone. I’m not here to criticize you. I am legitimately interested in helping:

All of those things you mentioned? Do all of that. Focus on your local feed, check out comments that originate from your instance. That’s how you will get a good fuel for those who subscribed to your instance.

And, as others have mentioned, you can sign up to any instance and still interact however, you like with the rest of Lemmy. Follow the rules of whatever community you’re commenting or posting in, sure, but, aside from the instances that are defeated, you can interact, post, comment, vote, whatever, regardless of your home instance. It’s just that a lot of people take particular care in choosing our home instance, and they choose a home instance that Socio politically aligns with their own views.

This is neither necessary, nor demanded from the vast majority of Lemmy users. It’s just how Lemmy was designed, and if you’re not interested in doing that, fine.