The block function prevents one obnoxious jerk (or a small number of obnoxious jerks) harassing/bullying a player out of Open altogether, forcing them into Solo/PG when otherwise they wouldn't have wanted to do that.
This would be a much greater inconvenience than the very very minor one mentioned in the OP: where there is a tiny possibility that you might occasionally be about to jump into an instance where someone who blocked you is present, and someone else is present too, and you are shunted into another instance and don't get to meet that other person.
It's a matter of proportionality. Nobody should be forced out of Open just to prevent a tiny inconvenience that will hardly ever happen. If it actually starts happening a lot, then maybe your decision to befriend habitual jerks might have something to do with that. The same thing happens in real life, if you hang out with obnoxious people, you won't get invited to parties - even if you're generally a nice person otherwise.
This would be a much greater inconvenience than the very very minor one mentioned in the OP: where there is a tiny possibility that you might occasionally be about to jump into an instance where someone who blocked you is present, and someone else is present too, and you are shunted into another instance and don't get to meet that other person.
It's a matter of proportionality. Nobody should be forced out of Open just to prevent a tiny inconvenience that will hardly ever happen. If it actually starts happening a lot, then maybe your decision to befriend habitual jerks might have something to do with that. The same thing happens in real life, if you hang out with obnoxious people, you won't get invited to parties - even if you're generally a nice person otherwise.
Let's look at how likely this problem is. We'll consider 3 people:
Y - You (who got blocked)
B - Blocker
F - Friend (or potential friend)
Firstly, we have to assume that all three of you would be online at the same time and in the same place. That is, in itself, very unlikely. In situatuions where it IS likely (CG's or whatever), these are crowded systems where instancing would be a free-for-all anyhow, so you're unlikely to be instanced with any specific person there.
So already it's very unlikely that instancing between Y and F would have occurred. Unless it was a prearranged meeting in an uncrowded location, but then it would be very unlikely that B would also be there.
If all of these coincidences fall into place, the outcome depends on the order in which these people arrive. There are 6 possibilities:
YFB: Blocker arrives last, Y and F meet, B gets a new instance.
FYB: Blocker arrives last, Y and F meet, B gets a new instance.
YBF: Y and B are in separate instances, F could meet either (50% chance).
FBY: F and B together, Y gets new instance.
BYF: Y and B are in separate instances, F could meet either (50% chance).
BFY: F and B together, Y gets new instance.
So, overall there's a 50% chance that Y will still be instanced with F despite B's block. And interestingly there's the same 50% chance that B will be instanced with F, so the effect on B's instancing is exactly the same as the effect on Y's instancing: the block equally affects both the blocker and the blockee's ability to meet others.
The person hit hardest will be the one who either blocks, or gets blocked by, the greater number of people.
Y - You (who got blocked)
B - Blocker
F - Friend (or potential friend)
Firstly, we have to assume that all three of you would be online at the same time and in the same place. That is, in itself, very unlikely. In situatuions where it IS likely (CG's or whatever), these are crowded systems where instancing would be a free-for-all anyhow, so you're unlikely to be instanced with any specific person there.
So already it's very unlikely that instancing between Y and F would have occurred. Unless it was a prearranged meeting in an uncrowded location, but then it would be very unlikely that B would also be there.
If all of these coincidences fall into place, the outcome depends on the order in which these people arrive. There are 6 possibilities:
YFB: Blocker arrives last, Y and F meet, B gets a new instance.
FYB: Blocker arrives last, Y and F meet, B gets a new instance.
YBF: Y and B are in separate instances, F could meet either (50% chance).
FBY: F and B together, Y gets new instance.
BYF: Y and B are in separate instances, F could meet either (50% chance).
BFY: F and B together, Y gets new instance.
So, overall there's a 50% chance that Y will still be instanced with F despite B's block. And interestingly there's the same 50% chance that B will be instanced with F, so the effect on B's instancing is exactly the same as the effect on Y's instancing: the block equally affects both the blocker and the blockee's ability to meet others.
The person hit hardest will be the one who either blocks, or gets blocked by, the greater number of people.
I am not sure if that is quite correct.
For instance if Y and B are both friends with F then the Friends list will trump the block so you would need to add more possibilities to your list.
* Friends (being on the friends list of the players)
So the block list is not an I win button, its more of reducer of possibilities at best.
Good post
And if you read the next line you'd see I said it wouldn't have to be a girl, and I was using that as an example.
Btw, I see girls complain about guys being creepy with them all the time. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I've seen guys complain about the same thing. So spare me the false equivalencies.
Well, you claimed my post was sexist because I used a legitimate example of why we need to have a block option, but in reality you could not have been sure I was purposely trying to be sexist (I wasn't). I really don't want to get into this, because now we're talking about domestic violence statistics, going down the "toxic feminism vs. true equality" rabbit hole, and not reasons why we need a block function. If we keep going it's just going to become one of those endless internet debates. Ain't nobody got time for that. lol
I don't think it really matters in this game. It would probably be bad in ESO if blocking someone removed them from your instance, but I mean Elite is so fragmented and inconsistent anyway it hardly makes a difference. I don't even know what "knock on effects" the OP could possibly be talking about. Between the different modes, instancing limitations, P2P infrastructure, combat logging, and extremely limited player interaction options to begin with; other players are just NPCs who can curse at you. They can't do anything interesting or special they're just there to make the galaxy feel a little more alive. Most people you encounter are going to be total strangers who contribute nothing to the game experience one way or another so it's not much of a loss for anyone if a particular person can never be matched up with some other particular person. I preemptively block anyone I see flying an FDL, just as a matter of principle, and I doubt it has any meaningful effect on anyone else's experience but my own.