> it’s hard to understand how everyday people can use this platform

Because they are not platforms: they are software, free to use. Their audience is systems administrators, not users.

Either the user is it's own systems administrator, or someone else has to do it... And in any case there is infrastructure to be paid for. Most users currently prefer someone else to do it and the price to be the watching of advertisements.

I believe a sweet halfway point is hosting cooperatives - not free of cost, but delivering user-control at a reasonable cost to users who do not wish to take on the burden of sysadmining.