FYI unless micro.blog changed its policy, you can have a micro.blog for free if you post from your own blog (or anything that sends out an RSS feed). I remember that many users playing with micro.blog when it started up simply created a WordPress site specifically for that purpose, posted to it just like any other blog, and since the native micro.blog clients for iOS and Mac interface directly with the WordPress blog, when using them to post it looks just like using a Twitter client(although you can also use any Micropub or WordPress client to post to the Wordpress blog as well).
But Micro.blog is a little too ‘dead simple’ - you couldn’t even post videos there until a year ago. Some of the limitations are inherent in the design. As Manton Reece, creator of Micro.blog noted:
Micro.blog doesn’t have hashtags, trending topics, or retweets because I think the focus on those features in other social networks has led to people being exposed to harassment, hateful posts, and even fake news. For Micro.blog, it’s more difficult to accidentally stumble on a random post unless it’s part of a conversation you’re in or from a section that is actively curated.
This was an important design decision and we’re not walking away
So while micro.blog is very simple, that simplicity keeps people from finding and engaging with individual blogs and posts.
Wordpress-hosted Wordpress is actually quite easy to use (I have a 75-year-old technophobe neighbor using it to post about local goings on), it has dozens of polished free templates, and is a lot more powerful (if you want things like comments, forms, Yelp reviews, maps, and more) if desired. With Microblogging templates on Wordpress (which I remember discussing with you in 2018) you get the best of both worlds.