You don’t see them because social media algorithms works for to improve your doom scrolling time. You’re not allowed to decide who to follow anymore. You have to see that they decide for you. Those people who you want to follow are only valuable for you, not for social media platforms.
This still isn’t true for Twitter like platforms like the ones OP mentioned, you see only posts from people you follow, in chronological order. If it’s not on by default, you can very easily turn it on from the main screen, and from my experience it never reverts.