you need thousands of dollars

no you don’t

Search up “Mastodon instances” and then “Bluesky instances”

Bluesky has a different architecture, there are no “instances”, it’s PDSs, relays and AppViews, all of which can be and are already being self-hosted.

they’re just jumping on the train with the billionaire who runs it

If you mean Dorsey, he has had nothing to do with Bluesky for well over a year now because he resented them implementing moderation tools