Yeah, and as far as I'm aware they can respond to you too. I much prefer it over Reddit's approach, it was often used as a "Haha, I get the last word!" Button.
That was their final iteration before I left, but previous to their changes it was the exact same thing. You could see, respond, etc. they just couldn’t see your responses.
Their final solution made for some stupid issues. Like accounts that went around intentionally spreading misinformation could just block the people that called out the BS, delete their comment, and say it again.
And worse, you couldn’t comment anywhere under their comment. So not just directly to them, but also anyone who replied to them. I had to make a secondary account for such situations because of a similar issue to the last paragraph.
Unfortunately, some lemmy apps will hide the whole thread if a blocked user even comments on it. My favorite app does this, so if i want to block bigots, I am left with either missing features or missing large amounts of content.