Yes, that sure is some serendipity at work. And the fact that you joined an instance that has a pretty liberal federation policy -- we only block an instance (currently two only, I believe) if there were problems with them, and they could not be resolved.
A lot of places have erected walls and blocked gab and their peripheral instances (yes ,there are some) since they first joined the fediverse, uninvited.
It was a big discussion at the time, I wasn't here yet but there are good articles on the net relating how it happened and what people said, did at the time.
@design_RG
Yea they did it as a hail mary move. Their network was dying and it was a last resort move. As much as I hate Gab personally I have to give them points for making the only viable business move they had, and it wasnt a bad one from a purely business perspective.
@ErikaDesign @lol