What I meant was an algorithm adding posts in your feed from other users you “might” like. Such an algorithm will likely spawn accounts and businesses focussed on targeting as many people as possible. I fully agree with just showing a page with messages/posts from people/communities you choose!
No algorithms optimized to keep you on the platform.
The Always Free tier is also very powerful in my opinion. You get 24GB RAM and 4 OCPU’s for Ampere (Arm) architecture VMs. You can run Oracle Linux or just plain old Ubuntu on it!
Censorship like that was introduced to make the platform appealing to advertisers. I’d say just don’t give power over how to run the platform to advertisers.
There’s not really a greta alternative that just allows you to sign in I believe. NewPipe indeed requires import, which can be a hassle. I recommend trying the ReVanced route for yourself once, because it allows you to select whichever patches you want (removing the Shorts is one of the options).
Best of luck!