That's what I wanted to ask. Last time I heard about their federation, their team were claiming the tests are underway in a sandbox or something. I wonder how that's going.
Check lowendtalk offers for some deals on VPS for self hosting. However be sure to check the sellers standing in the community from past offers. You'll also need to beware of resource limits as sellers will be trying to oversell like crazy and you might end up on some crowded nodes. So make sure you understand what youre getting yourself into.
On lemmy, I didn't realise it at first but I found out I could go to federated feed. So I usually check the federated feed and block out all the things that don't interest me at all. Subscribed to ones that did. So my home feed is mostly full. If I ever go through all of my feed, I go back to federated feed to see what other communities that might interest me.
I also use voyager app so it's been a great experience.
If the only thing you do on instagram is chat. maybe try Beeper? It's a matrix client with an instagram bridge. You still have to trust beeper but you can host your own matrix server and use their brigdes.
Instagram still gets your chat data but it won't be scooping up anything else.
I still have my OG pixel XL that I turn on when I need to upload, but having to transfer to it every time is a little cumbersome. My daily driver is also a pixel phone but would be nice if it would just work on its own.
They kinda have to make some bold claims to stay relevant as Apple Vision might bankrupt them into oblivion when it releases.