"Choosing an instance isn't difficult, I think people are overstating that."

Okay, now find an instance that:

* Isn't defederated from some significant portion of my friend group.

* Isn't defederated _from_ by the same.

* Doesn't defederate from major news sources running on their own instances.

* Has reasonable moderation.

* Will actually be here tomorrow and not just fold.

* Has reasonable uptime.

* I can trust to not to keep an unencrypted copy of the database on a personal device.