What do you use?
Personally the only thing similar to version control I use is GNU Emacs' automatic autosave and backup features (which are simply a very poor emulation of copy-on-write and snapshots). I really only program relatively small utilities and libraries presently for my own use along with exercises from textbooks. My understanding is that most of the utility of version control comes when you have multiple contributors, or a large relatively undocumented repository so you can search for justification.
What would you want to use? Opinions on the state of hosting (more federation, more decentralization, etc.)?
I've said this elsewhere recently, but it seems pretty silly to me that there exist DVCS platforms. Fossil is fairly nice in that it's efficient, while still allowing for version controlled wikis, bug trackers, etc. that you would typically find on a DVCS platform. You really only need a mailing list where people can submit bundles to be reviewed and merged. Some of you here may also be interested in Game of Trees which just a slimmed down version of git (but with some additional security measures, pledge, and unveil), completely compatible with existing git repositories.
Or is it all a mistake to begin with?
I think it's a good idea to have something like version control if you have multiple developers just because it allows for blame assignment relatively easily (although you actually have to know people for this). I don't really have an issue with multiple people having commit access and it's also useful so that these people can make changes concurrently. I do disagree with the idea that comments in the version control should be used to replace documentation.