@kitty well, first of all, if you are not self hosting then download (early and often) your contacts list. If people have freedom then when they are paying for the resources to run an instance then it is their bat, and ball and consequently their rules and choices, as long as they are not a government actor. While lists are great and all, but I am not sure that is how the federation works.
My problem is more of the fact that there are people out there who are really going out of their way to try to drive certain instances out of the fediverse, to the point that they're creating such a toxic and hostile environment for everyone around them even greater than the things that they just don't want to see because they don't like it. If the instance isn't doing anything illegal, you can just block people (from your own timeline!) instead of creating a huge gap between people that may just want to use the platform to stay in touch with their friends and causing them issues anywhere between possibly having to switch instances, and completely losing contact with their friends, with no way to ever find them again.