[lollobomb]

As for another data point, opening a Mastodon account for me was as trivial as choosing one random link from a webpage, choosing a username, password, and entering my email. If you get frozen on the choice of instance, that has more to do with your mental process than with an effective difficulty for the average user.

If you really cannot go beyond your inclination, and since you are a a long-time Internet user and a nerd, why not host your own instance?