how to bluesky without being on bluesky?

i'm interested in joining bluesky - primarily to follow and connect with indie devs i think are Cool and Neat - but i don't really love the tos for bluesky itself. my loose understanding of how bluesky works is that you're supposed to either host your own stuff or pick it up and put it somewhere else and still have it talk to other bluesky accounts. that said, i have no idea how to do that... is…