I think I have to dispute the idea that hosting a web service like Pleroma "should be simple". It's a complex system with multiple dependencies and an external database server.

Of course, it would be nice if somebody made a full-featured fediverse server that was self-contained with no dependencies, did backups through a web UI, and was generally as easy as possible for someone without expertise to self-host. Pleroma isn't designed for that. Neither is Mastodon.