Yeah, that's great for me, but doesn't help me when everyone else is using the hosted stuff :)

Ok, I'll bite, what even could be the alternative here then? You want something without big funders, totally OSS, and extremely friendly for grandmas? Feels like one of those "you can only pick two" type things to me, but would love to learn that's not the case.

Also: 1. Mainstream enough for grandma. 2. No public hosts, you are required to self host it. Totally reasonable I don't see why this is so hard. /s

Its fashionable in the leftist world to compete to take the most radical position you can.

You described the goal, yeah, that would be pretty wonderful, like unicorns, flying pixie dust and other things that don't seem to exist as of yet.

I really don't think that is fashionable. Why would people want to do that?