While legal documents like terms and conditions can have surprising gotchas, they are not impossible to decipher for a layman and for a completely new website,

While legal documents like terms and conditions can have surprising gotchas, they are not impossible to decipher for a layman and for a completely new website, it is absolutely reasonable and practical to spend an afternoon researching the gist of concepts and getting a sufficient understanding so you can create a T&C that won't cause you legal troubles. That is, if you want to create a T&C in the first place. Hacker News doesn't have a T&C. Facebook certainly didn't have a T&C when it first launched, and Apple didn't sell their Apple I with a contract. You are very very unlikely to encounter any issues without a T&C and privacy policy.