Any second-hand business class laptop that fits your budget, i.e. HP Elitebook/Probook/Zbook, Dell Inspiron/Latitude/XPS, or Lenovo Thinkpad.
Businesses tend to get rid of them after 4 years, even if they're still in good condition. Great bang for your buck and easily repairable if something does end up breaking.
You'll have to install Linux yourself, but generally support for older hardware is OK.
IMPORTANT: make sure the BIOS isn't locked before buying.
That and without an income source, you can't pay content creators, so you can't attract them to the platform in the first place. People dislike YouTube for running ads, but the ads are what pays for the videos.
IIUC the main problem with security (and how most WP sites get pwned) is the plugin ecosystem. There are thousands of plugins out there, which means that among many secure ones, there are also many (very) insecure ones. If you're judicious and don't install low-quality plugins, it shouldn't be a major problem.
WordPress itself has automatic updates turned on by default, so if a vulnerability is discovered with WP core, the patch will land on your site automatically without any effort on your part.
One plugin that's I use on my WP sites is the Wordfence firewall. They have a free version, and while not really necessary given the above, it does give a little peace of mind.
All that said, the main draw for WP is to be able to manage a website without having to touch code. If you're happy to write your pages by hand, a static site generator is definitely a lot more lightweight than a CMS like WordPress.
Self-hosted WordPress blogs were actually already able to federate with the fediverse (if the blog admin installs the requisite plugin). The recent news is that blogs hosted on WordPress.com are now also able to federate.
WordPress.com is the name of the hosting service by the creators of WordPress, but you can also choose to host the WordPress software elsewhere (and many do).
The guy who, in the first place, came up with the idea for a fork of b2/cafelog (which would come to be known as WordPress), is Matt Mullenweg. He’s still the lead developer of the open-source WordPress project to this day, 20 years later.
It is true that Mullenweg’s company Automattic gave the WordPress trademark to the WordPress Foundation in 2010. The founder of said foundation is the very same Matt Mullenweg. It is not the case that Automattic and the Foundation “legally […] have to” be separate, that’s a choice that Automattic/Mullenweg made.
It is a fact that without Mullenweg, WordPress would not exist, period (neither .org nor .com). Mullenweg/Automattic do not only “[influence] the WP org”, they created (and still lead!) the WP org.
Of course, I’m sure WP Engine is a fine host, and all the better that they also contribute back to the WP project (that’s the power of open source!).
In WordPress, one blog can have many authors, so it does make sense to consider it a group
You know that they made the software in the first place, right? As in, the WP.org people and the WP.com people are the same people.
Any second-hand business class laptop, i.e. HP Elitebook/Probook/Zbook, Dell Inspiron/Latitude/XPS, or Lenovo Thinkpad.
Businesses tend to get rid of them after 4 years, even if they're still in good condition. Great bang for your buck and easily repairable if something does end up breaking.
You really just need, like, a screwdriver set to get into most laptops. Maybe you can search online (e.g. on YouTube) for tutorials for your model. Then you can buy a replacement fan and also replace the thermal paste, because 13-year-old thermal paste surely isn’t doing you any favors in the performance department. Altogether it shouldn’t cost more than €50 (if you’re careful not to break any internals).
BTW, if you want to watch YouTube videos with less resources, you can also copy the video URL into VLC