>>I think the thing is, if the admin of your instance de-federates with another instance, you don't have much in the way of options if you want to follow someone on that instance.

This doesn't happen often in practice, especially once they added a way for users to block instances on an individual level.

Early on, some instances just weren't a good mesh for a lot of the early users, and their aggressive, boisterous ways tended to push out and silence those early users. Blocking was the only way to keep the community from being overrun, but someone who enjoyed being screamed at by strangers didn't have a say in it without moving to another instance. Now that's not the case.

>> You can't take your account elsewhere. You're pretty much limited to creating a new account on a new instance, and then you have to communicate to all your followers that you've moved.

You can export a list of people you follow and import it on the new one. Most people will refollow you. People move to new instances all the time and don't seem to have trouble recovering their following.