> you really don't need crazy software like Mastodon or Pleroma to participate in it.
You may not need crazy software, but it's not like you just have to "implement a spec" to be part of it: read https://schub.wtf/blog/2019/01/13/activitypub-final-thoughts... for more details, where you'll learn that ActivityPub is not really a specification but rather guidelines for doing things. You can't "implement ActivityPub" and expect your app to play well with the network; the specification is vague enough that multiple incompatible behaviours are technically valid with the specification so you actually have to "implement Mastodon" and "implement Pleroma" and "implement Pixelfed" etc...
You may not need crazy software, but it's not like you just have to "implement a spec" to be part of it: read https://schub.wtf/blog/2019/01/13/activitypub-final-thoughts... for more details, where you'll learn that ActivityPub is not really a specification but rather guidelines for doing things. You can't "implement ActivityPub" and expect your app to play well with the network; the specification is vague enough that multiple incompatible behaviours are technically valid with the specification so you actually have to "implement Mastodon" and "implement Pleroma" and "implement Pixelfed" etc...