IMO, that's just being lazy.
The blocks are irrelevant. If anything, they keep you protected, since no one will hit you while blocked by a big player. And the 25% ransom - if they even take it from such a small player - is negligible. At the same time, you're still free to raid (for example, other blocks of your blocker) and Fireship the guy blocking you (or anyone else).
Raids are easily thwarted by simply spending your res and turtling your troops. Build up your harbour, spend down as often as you can, and keep your units in the harbour. They'd be just wasting raid attempts on you, and no one does that without being provoked (even if they did, it makes no difference to you). It's as simple as that.
You can also look into that player's enemies and ask for help, if you want a more active approach. Diplomacy is a valuable, yet often ignored element of games like this one.
As for "Plarium losing customers"... Plarium doesn't care much about non-paying players. And with just a handful of rubies, you can get enough res at the Smuggler's to build your harbour up quickly, while having your warehouses and practically cellars empty. If you take care how you buy your rubies, you'll have over 1M off and def in no time, get some etchings for even higher levels of harbour, etc. Global units discounts = 2 Fireships for the price of one. Picking up a fight when the revival discount is on or when we can anticipate it to be in the next week is also good strategy for hitting back. Veteran units require few rubies, but also very little resources, so they can be trained in bigger amounts even with small production and raiding.
In other words, little money, some patience, and a bit of effort, and no big player can do you any significant harm, while you can fight back fairly efficiently.
For a bit more rubies, but just once (i.e., no need to keep investing), walls and haven improvements can make your home def 3+ times stronger, inflicting your attacker significant losses even with weak army (or even someone else's army, if you can get them to help you out).
My point is: you have options, things you can do, with or without money. On the other hand, if you decide to start hitting blocks of any big player and you're smart about it, there is almost nothing they can do about it (they can try to trap you blindly, which is cumbersome, expensive, and for a very small gain), precisely because even blocking you will do them no good. So who's really at a disadvantage here?
#BlocksShoukldImpedeBlockedPlayersFightingAbility (i.e., #MakeBlocksGreatAgan (again?!)) :-P