@LogicalDash no! its simpler than that.
theres talk of a version number of a sort that lets you tell not-masto things from masto, and you can just like, impliment that for certain queries. it increases overhead, sure, but its not hard to be like 'yo respond to everything w/ x silently with #v1.3.1, or something
and then just, only give things to those, or things that support $feature, when you know the other people refuse to even care