I don’t block instances. I block communities and users. An instance is too large a group of people. They’re not a monolith. Some people on hexbear are garbage and some are not. Some topics encourage jerks, some do not.
At a point the garbage to quality ratio gets too high to do that. Yeah, I’m sure some decent folks get blocked when you block a whole instance, but there’s plenty of other people in non shithole instances to more than make up for it. I just use whichever method is most efficient at cleaning up my feed at the time.
unpopular opinion time: hexbear isn’t that bad. I’ve had to block a few communities, but I do that with any instance. I’ve had to block more on hexbear, but it’s not a ton. I’ve had to block more people on hexbear than other instances, but it’s not that bad. I appreciate their different viewpoints. I don’t like echo chambers and I learn a lot.
I have a similar experience. However, I feel that they have been getting a bit more argumentative in the last months (or maybe the argumentative voices are getting louder). I really appreciate how aggressively they defend our trans brothers, sisters, and enbies but, there seems to be a lot more focus on “dunking” than community building or discussions. Also, they’re at times quick to pull out the torches, rather than clarify and not always successful at preventing leftist sectarianism.
That said, by blocking problematic or unhealthily rage-inducing communities and users, I tend to get on alright in about 90% of interactions and learn a bit, from time to time, even if it’s not what’s intentionally taught (the commonality of historical revisionist takes in sectarian topics, for example).
