as long as the community is created on a larger instance it should show up when users sort by all within that instance
This is an issue for communities that are on smaller instances, and with the current algorithm it’s like a brick wall trying to break through to feeds of users on the big instances. For example, the most active college football community is !cfb@fanaticus.social but the abandoned community on lemmy.world keeps gaining subscribers (even with no content).
As a whole, niche-driven instances (e.g. sport, film, literature, aviation) and geography-focused instances (e.g. midwest, dmv) just aren’t gaining much traction.
This is a shame, but it’s understandable. Just as long as they don’t cut back on what they carry online. They have a fantastic online selection which the stores never really matched. Some of their sales made it possible to grab Criterion blu rays for cheaper than the 50% off sales at B&N.