I will say that I sometimes like to visit controversial communities due to curiosity, and to be amazed at all the insane and braindead things people say. Furthermore, I don't like living in a bubble, and knowing what people I disagree with say/think is important to forming well-informed opinions. So sometimes I do like to subscribe to communities on even places like lemmygrad just for those reasons. It's annoying when instances block controversial instances, because controversy often interesting and very lurkable. I understand why those places are blocked, and I definitely don't want to see fascist bs on my feed all the time. But I wish I could have the best of both worlds.

I wanna decide what I get to see. It would be cool if the instances could be blocked on a followers-only basis. Like, blocked for the all feeds, blocked in general. But not for me if I follow it.

I actually chose this instance in large part because it only blocks one other one lol

I was talking about the targeted ads, telemetry/data that is gathered and sold to 3rd parties, and data retention policies. I understand that posting on a public forum means anyone can see what I post, but I dislike how little control I have over my own data and how it is used. The fediverse is definitely better on that front. If I don't like the privacy policy of one instance, I can simply hop to another. There are no targeted ads here, and most instances ban advertising altogether. It's refreshing, and it's a large part of what I miss from Web 1.0. Privacy isn't all or nothing, and I don't expect it to be. Whatever privacy problems the fediverse has, it's so much better than nearly every other social media platform out there.

Yes! So happy to hear this! I was afraid the momentum would stall after the initially planned two days. I used Reddit as a basic replacement for google search… but it needs to die. This whole situation has is exactly why the fediverse must succeed. I am so tired of huge corporations pulling this bs. I am so tired of fighting them to hold on to my privacy. I am so tired of bloated websites that load slowly. I’m tired of it all.