Does my instance only get copies of statuses on other instances if at least one person on here follows them?

I run into situations where I find friends on other instances and most of their posts are missing. I'm guessing it's because we're all new to Mastodon and aren't being followed by people on every instance.

Is it then not possible to reply to an older post of theirs from this account?

@acjay I believe that to reply to an older post than your instance has, you'll need to do the reply on the original poster's instance. Nb: I haven't tested this myself yet.

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@ojensen That wouldn't work, though, because I wouldn't have an identity when accessing their instance directly.

But someone else gave me a solution: qoto.org/web/statuses/10939969

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