I don't disagree, but discussing reliability and access shouldn't be met with suggestions to leave the community.

It may be entitled to expect uptime for a volunteer service but it's also entitled of the project as a whole to expect users if the service is not usable.

I've had good reliability. My home instance advises when updated are planned and are normally for minutes. The timeline is generally rough estimates, with the caveat that the admin is doing it outside their usual work hours. The users thank them for the update and take an interest.