I think the analogy will hold only because the problems you’ve presented should get worked out over time. I feel the same with how fediverse links work and how it interacts with your Lemmy account (like it’s super easy to link a fediverse comment/post, just a little harder to get from your account instance to that link where you can interact with it).

My first Lemmy account was on a little instance where I had to go through subscribing, like you said, for those instance feeds to pop up. I also see that as just another wrinkle that will be ironed out over time, as the setting up and hosting of instances becomes more mainstream (well from at least it’s current state).