Ohhh man, I'm out of the loop, and I thought I was being helpful earlier, but I wasn't. What's the matrix space? It's not the federation?

Am I getting this right that it's like self-hosted email, but for chat? Or do we have to pick an instance to host the chat log? How do people normally go about picking? How does matrix space tie into the canvas community on toast ooo?

Surely there's a Eli5 page or community for this matrix-space? Does matrix space go by any other name?

Thank you for your time! I already love where this is going, but don't wanna wet my socks just yet and sign up for many things willy nilly in case I lose track :0