> Meaning, if your pod X blocks me from following someone from pod Y, forcing me to run my own pod, then I won't be able to follow my friends back on your pod X. Sounds like a broken system to me.

It sounds broken because that's not how it works.

When you spin up your own instance, no existing deny list anywhere on the Fediverse has your instance listed, unless you're buying a previously-used domain (which then has other, bigger problems, than this). So you can follow instance X, Y, Z, A, T, B, C, G, whoever your heart pleases. They aren't actively policing single-user instances, only larger ones, for the double-federation rule. A new clean slate, until you open your mouth and people begin curating their communities again. But this then moves the conversation from a can follow to can listen scenario. The latter of which, my first response to you was pretty thorough.

If I understand it right the only reason you are continuously infatuated with blockchain is because there is a belief that everyone downloading this "centralized" ledger of data equates to everyone having an equally discoverable voice and then an equitable chance of readers viewing a piece of content.

That's simply not true. Whatever client can be used to view this blockchain of "dialogue" can come with preset filters that ensures that, even if the data is downloaded on-chain, no human will ever see it. The chain could be lengthened with spam, burying your messages to the far past, or kilometers worth of up-scrolling. You've got the data on the machine but no eyeballs viewing it. There is no inherent value to content that is never viewed; if you believe otherwise, I have ad space on my blog to sell you!

Same outcome as the Fediverse, but way more wasteful, because there's way more unnecessary bandwidth on the network being used, as data that is never going to be read gets passed around. The protocol could be forked where your censorship-enemies agree up to a certain point on a chain is valid, and then only download the preceding merkle node content they care about, ensuring your previous content never gets propagated in the first place. In addition to the other kinds of blockchain attacks.

This is why I will keep bringing up FreeNet. If you're concerned about censorship and speech on the internet, blockchain is just a tool for a specific kind of problem (and you've yet to convince me this is that kind of problem); FreeNet is a multi-decade old network designed, and with the papers proving, to be robust against censorship attacks at multiple levels (adversarial content, network, node).

The Fediverse is a decentralized way to run communities like BBSs and Forums and SubReddits and PatreonPages that all natively interact with each other as if one data graph, but multiple different applications sharing and modifying that data graph.

Edit:

> That's the issue here, if you can't open your mouth then you might as well stay on twitter.

Is it really though[0]? Why Twitter? To me, that's a really funny suggestion! They have the sole authority to kick you off their entire network. No one can do that on the Fediverse. Rather than make a step towards a beneficial direction you see, you'd rather stick in an ugly quagmire? No offense intended, but after watching after some stubborn kids, this sounds exactly like one of their "I'd rather be stubborn and punish myself than have a middle compromise because I cannot get exactly what I want".

I do mean this sincerely: no matter where you go, I hope you feel safe to speak your mind.

[0] I ask because that means this is a freedom of speech issue, AKA what my first reply was all about. And even more validates my concerns you have some goalpost shifting going on. But the middling responses were trying to convince me it wasn't this issue, but one merely about following (aka receiving, not sending, content).