Great! As a follow up question, for example I want to let a friend use my hubzilla server to host their hub. Can I “allow” them to bring their own domain name and let them use it?

Edit to add one more question: Is there a restriction on what top level domain can be used for what purpose (fedi, email, website) or anything goes?

Sort of. I feel like I need to know my own priorities better because I’m not sure what I want wrt hosting. Because of general trust and privacy issues, of course self-hosting (at home) is the ultimate best option, but I think that might only be a long term thing and I can’t do it now. So I’m wondering what to prioritize right now - cost, reputation, or simplicity - because I’ve found quite a few options that differ in these aspects.

Writefreely is simple and can be free, but I can’t find very many public instances and have no way of verifying reputation.

Similarly, wordpress.com has been under fire for a lot of things and I’m not sure how I feel about hosting with them &- free or otherwise.

Everything else like random VPS providers feels like a gamble because I know nothing about them and it seems like a black box. And obviously, cost increases for what is essentially going to be a bunch of writings from one person.

Would you recommend WordPress as a hosting service? I’m not able to understand the structure of it all to figure out if it:'s ethical and what with the recent fights with WP Engine and stuff, I’m unsure how it all actually works.