If you want to use it like DO/Linode it isn't hard. Just fire up an EC2 server and you are good to go.
It can get confusing when you start linking multiple services together, but many of these services are life savers when it comes to scaling your apps.
The launch is not that complicated - it's 7 pages, most of which you can ignore to go with defaults. You're interested in what you're running, what size, network security, and storage - that's about it for the start.
Maybe you need to just take a break for a while... anger and billed services don't mix well :) Alternatively, if you're just testing, make sure you click "free tier only" at the beginning.
But imo EC2 servers aren't that hard after you do it your first time or two. Most of the defaults work and I always setup SSH key on DO servers anyway.
Then you get the benefit down the road of being able to link all of the other services together when it is time to scale up a bit.