This definitely needs to be fixed ASAP. Both wefwef and connect allow you to easily subscribe to communities from outside of your own instance, which is pretty essential as a new user trying to migrate from Reddit. Until it's fixed, it's hard to recommend liftoff to less tech savvy friends which is a shame because the rest of the app is far superior to the competition.
You can do it from your browser, log in to your instance and search for !turnbasedstrategy@lemmy.world or alternatively Lemmy.world/c/turnbasedstrategy, if it gives you zero results wait 10 to 30 seconds, then click on the result that says for example “turnbasestrategy - 1 subscriber” and join the community from there
Right, but I'm posting in the Liftoff community because this feature should be added to Liftoff. In fact, looks like it was added just one day after I posted.