Followed some people... kind of having trouble to not just click "follow" on all the nice people, but I guess it's better I don't if I cannot read the language they post in or am not that interested in the topics they post about...
Also, I think I really like the "subscribe" feature (not sure how widespread it is among instances?) and the fact that mastodon has rss feeds, which I guess it's based on. It means you can easily read someone's toots without committing in any way. I'm now subscribed to more people than I'm following lol

Slight correction: without committing in any way except that the instance owners can see your subscriptions.

On a similar note, I think mastodon's direct message feature should come with a big flashy warning explaining that it's not end-to-end encrypted, that the operators of the servers of both communicating parties can read them.
I think there should also be an option to turn them off completely rather than only to restrict them to the people you follow.