Speaking of copying Mastodon's implementation, I have a funny story.

Have you heard of https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks ? It's a hub for AP devs, I started it in 2019 using a domain I recycled from my first ActivityPub project attempt.

Before I created @pixelfed, I made a GNU/social successor from scratch, it was almost ready until I realized I made a huge mistake, I didn't account for remote profiles.

I almost gave up, and later started Pixelfed by copying Mastodon's database schema

Never give up 😉