Just off the top of my head, my initial reaction is that it really seems like activitypub is just not suitable for implementation as the base layer in diaspora.
Yeah it’s just folks too lazy or unable to figure out how to pirate on their own, so some entrepreneurial pirates choose to sell slots on their personal media servers.
Perhaps researchers did do this, and found that there was no difference, but decided not to publish that.
Well hey if we are just gonna play “what if everything is a conspiracy” then maybe researchers found that Johnson and Johnson talc powder was actually sourced from Proxima Centauri but decided not to publish that little trade secret.