1. usually ~/.config/PROGRAM_NAME/

You probably want to look into $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and the freedesktop spec documentation if you are interested in more of where these standards come from:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/ar01s02.html

(and more generally)

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/

obviously good for the bit, but the serious reason why this exists is likely because it’s a modern gtk app -> it’s meant for gnome users / made by a gnome users -> gnome is all in on freedesktop/flathub -> these users can all expect to have flatpak availability as a common method of distribution -> therefore, release it as a flatpak, so these users who already have flatpak can more easily manage their appimage-only programs

Worth noting that some of this isn’t always 💯 possible. If some instances have blocked other instances where users have interacted with a post, your numbers and their numbers will diverge. The host of the content generally will have the most complete numbers, but it might be possible for that to be wrong if the server doesn’t have authorized fetch enabled (ie: server a has content, blocks server b, server c boosts the content but does not block c, c boosts/upvotes/favorites it. A now doesn’t know about any metrics from server C, despite being the original source of content).

@Gawanoh Do you mean with an account on a mastodon instance, or from Lemmy? In the web UI for mastodon, there is an explore tab that can show you what people on that server are boosting / favoriting the most, that can at least give you some users and threads to click on (to click on more users) and potentially follow them. You can also check the federated timeline, which will probably be way too much to read everything but if you are fishing for content you might find something good if you happen to look at the right time. A local timeline can show you good people too if you picked an instance with reasonable people on it (your definitions / millage may vary).

If that doesn’t work or you are looking for accounts to follow from Lemmy / kbin, you could try using the https://fedi.directory website or #followfriday hashtag to find people recommending accounts.

@Wild_Mastic yes, this is someone replying from mastodon. By default it adds ats for the thread and all comment parents to my post, but I can delete them.

I got here by finding this comment on the lemmy.world website and copying the URL into my mastodon client manually. If I wanted to spend time here specifically, I could get a feed of all your posts by following @Wild_Mastic, follow all posts from this sub magazine as if it were a user reblogging all content in it by following @main. I think there is also a way to follow any post to the instance but that would be something of a firehouse of information.

Regrettably, there is no great way to easily post with a nonlocal non-lemmy/non-kbin account to my knowledge currently outside of subscribing to these places prior to the post being made that you want to comment / interact with. But that could be done either with improved apps on desktop / mobile, integrations from existing apps or even something like a web browser addon perhaps.

Not the definition of dilate I was expecting lol