Hello and welcome! I didn't see a couple things mentioned that I thought were very helpful to me with the instance choosing, so I just wanted to pass it along...

If you look at your account kinda like an email, all the emails can communicate with each other, just like the instances can communicate. Though, an instance can also block another so thay it can not be seen/interacted with. Like, gmail deciding they will no longer accept yahoomail, for example.

.ml has been blocked by a variety of others, so you may be missing out on some interests elsewhere, that you would enjoy.

I use an app and have a few different accounts, the app lets me just swap my sign in profiles back and forth as I like. Sometimes a server goes down or an update goes bad. Having another account let's you check in on the action, on those who are still up and running while the other gets worked on. You can even use the same name, your @ will just change.

Initial sign up is roughest step really... but not much harder than grabbing a new email!

OK, that was more than a couple, hopefully something was helpful though and helps your experience here!