

There is nothing pointless about following your passions - in fact I’d say that is the only point of life. It’s the opposite of pointless.
Maybe you need to reframe it as not failure, but progress. See how you get better and closer, not how you didn’t reach the goal. It’s about the journey.
I mean… This isn’t inspiring great confidence. Fediverse platforms are by no means simple and neither are all the features you mention. I think you have good ideas, but as a professional software engineer with a masters in computer science who is also working on a fediverse platform… It’s not easy and learning everything from the bottom might be a big bite.