I have an account, but I don't really use it much. Not because I don't like it, but because I don't have much to say really. I'm more of the lurker type.

The important thing about Matrix is to think of it like email. Homeservers are like your email provider, like Hotmail or Gmail or Protonmail. You look for a homeserver, then you just make an account on that homeserver. The "main" homeserver is matrix.org, but it's recommended not to make an account on there if you can avoid it. Remember that making accounts on these homeservers is free, so there's no reason not to make accounts on a few of them to try out.

The other thing to think about is your matrix client. This is similar to an IRC client or an email app. Luckily, this matter even less than the homeservers since you can freely switch between these anytime with basically no issues. If none catch your eye, Element is the sort of "reference implementation" so you can just try that one if you want. It has a web version too: https://app.element.io

There's some cool more advanced features like spaces and threads, but you don't have to worry about those much at first.

Creating an account? (basically the same as anywhere really) or your own instance? (Pretty easy, there are ansible playbooks, docker containers)

Not too hard just a couple things to get used to but it genuinely was barely harder than discord for an easy sign up

You don't have to be condescending.

Email is pretty centralized at this point https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html