@trinsec My first ever conversation! Thank for explaining that to me. Sounds like follow is like twitter. Not sure what you'd use subscribe for, really. Does it mean you'd see toots from those you don't follow, but you won't if you don't subscribe? I'm still thinking twitter.
@bewildered
Sometimes an account requires you to apply for following, and then they'll decide whether to allow you to or not.
But maybe you really like them even though they didn't allow you to follow them. So you can follow their public-only toots instead. Just as if you subscribed to an RSS reader. That way you can still read their latest cool stuff.