You can still check back on conversations that interest you, you just don't have to deal with the rest.. 👍
To be completely honest, on kbin blocking someone doesn't stop the notification coming through when they reply, and switching off notifications was the easiest way around that. This has probably been fixed already, and may be completely different on lemmy, but I actually prefer it this way. The only disadvantage I can think of is potentially missing replies to older conversations (and if I really must know, I can always scroll back my profile and find it, though I've not had that need yet), but I guess that's a price I'm willing to pay to avoid those anxiety inducing little fuckers that are notifications.. 😂