> On a Mastodon instance, there are also no steps you can take. Your account is banned on the instance — your entire identity goes down with it.

You're constantly looking at it from the wrong perspective. I don't care about the instance I'm on banning me because I am the one that hosts my instance.

What I care about is that I am able to connect with any of my friends without the data going through any central arbiter that can decide what we get to see or not.

And on mastodon, if one instance defederates from me, pretty much everyone else will still be able to interact with me anyway, it's not the end.