youre correct but it would be fairly trivial to not include them in the followers count or either list since the appview could say "person a blocked person b, so dont count person b in the list of people following person a" you cant actually make them unfollow but could appear as if they were
could do the same w likes etc, dont count likes from B on A's posts if A blocked B
I wonder if people would be okay with this. Since the person would still be effectively following them.
But is a follow with none of the attributes of a follow still a follow?
It would still be because outside the Bluesky client it would still be shown as a follow. There is also the issue that due to being public you can't "soft-block" (block and unblock to force an unfollow) someone without a potential stalker or troll not noticing.
I mean that’s already how it works for blocks the only thing is the follow removal would have to be a public record
Hm, true. And one of the reasons people want this feature is to "soft-block" as force an unfollow without drawing attention.