Per my post here (https://lemmy.ml/post/1141245) I am finding it a little frustrating that I am not able to block instances as a user. I understand giving instances the ability to block other instances, but why should I not be able to do that on the user end as well? I already effectively have the ability to do it but it’s just practically impossible to actually do it since it would involve going to every community and every user in that instance and manually blocking all of them which I’m obviously not going to spend the time to do.

One user suggested that I just browse my subscribed communities, but I have a couple issues with that. First of all, I don’t want to lose the functionality of sorting by all as opposed to subscribed/local. Second, it doesn’t do anything at all for blocking comments which blocking an instance would do.

The ideal situation currently is that I am able to find an instance which fits my preferences, which assuming adoption becomes more widespread should become easier. My problem with this being the ideal solution is that even in this situation there can arise issues later on. Let’s say that a year down the line another instance pops up which gains enough traction to where I am seeing its communities/users regularly enough for me to want to block the instance. The only way that I currently have of doing that would be to suggest to the instance owner to block it and hope that they agree with me. Even if they do agree with me, others in the instance might not agree. Let’s assume for a second that they don’t want to block the new instance, what are my options? It seems to me that I can either go back to manually banning every community and user that ever pops up on the new instance, or I can go look for another new instance to join that is a better fit again and abandon my year old account in the process since you can’t transfer accounts.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t literally all of these problems be solved by allowing users to block instances on their end? And don’t users already effectively have the ability to block instances one community/user at a time so it’s not like you would even be giving them any more power than they already have? I would be able to find whatever instance most closely fits my ideals without it having to be perfect even if they don’t block any of the instances I want blocked. Of course I would still have to abide by the rules of the instance, but it gives me much more flexibility in choosing where I want to call home and more flexibility should any future issues arise.