I won't disagree with the fact that it's a pain to get one up - but I've never touched Docker before, and I was able to get my instance up and running in a Docker container on a DigitalOcean droplet in a few hours over a couple days.

Sorting out the account creation email took about a week longer, IIRC. I don't feel like digging through the earliest toots I made on my instance to be sure of that right now.

I'm curious: would having your data be controlled by someone only one or two steps of friendship away feel different from a total stranger, or a corporation?