Same for me. Running a 2020 M1 MBA with Big Sur. Seems like when you have a window open already, it works most of the time (depending on where the cursor position is when you do the 4-finger swipe up) but when you don't have any window open, it doesn't seem to work much at all.
Would really love to see a fix for this. I think it's ridiculous that the desktops don't show up by default like they did when they first came out with Mission Control.