They always first focus on consuming the free content vs giving any back

There’s really no functionality around it yet, beyond following accounts from other instances, as we have yet to start processing incoming posts and adding the ability to interact with them. But if you just can’t wait to show your appreciation for other accounts by following them, go wild!

So it's preliminary work that does nothing yet. Not quite sure how they want to expand that. A separate page of "people I'm following" perhaps.