(in short: an implicit part of the process is that no one wants to end up in an instance that closes down in a couple of years because, after all, lots of them have a bus factor of 1)
The common response of "just pick an instance" is hiding quite the important decision of choosing a reliable and future-proof (within reason, i.e. that it will be still alive at least for the next 5 to 10 years) one.
The choice of technology and poor optimization of the reference Mastodon implementation, doesn't help at all the case of self-hosting, either.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34008165
(in short: an implicit part of the process is that no one wants to end up in an instance that closes down in a couple of years because, after all, lots of them have a bus factor of 1)
The common response of "just pick an instance" is hiding quite the important decision of choosing a reliable and future-proof (within reason, i.e. that it will be still alive at least for the next 5 to 10 years) one.
The choice of technology and poor optimization of the reference Mastodon implementation, doesn't help at all the case of self-hosting, either.