That was a wonderful reference.

I believe that Reolink cameras plus an NVR allow, but don’t require, completely offline recording.

I had a similar experience.

I’m using “Connect.” For every post I see, there’s both a “block this community” and “block this instance” option. After I started making use of these, my feed (while still limited) became much more palatable. Presumably other apps have similar functionality, but I cannot comment definitively.