David you need to add at least one (or a couple) of pay-to-write relays to get a reasonable experience. Many people are not reading from non-followers on free relays because of the spam issue, so discoverability is pretty limited.

You can pick and add any relays on https://relay.exchange

If you want recommendations, nostr.wine and the various nostr.land relays are good. (Not an all inclusive list of good relays.)