I always feel like the “lightning doesn’t work” posts always come from people who have never run a node, or else it’s been a while since they have interacted with the network.

Things have come a really long way in the last few years, and they are improving rapidly! I have not seen a forced closure on my node in many months, routings are picking up constantly, and some of the biggest payments I have ever seen moving through.

Current implementations are now very stable. Bugs still pop up from time to time, and UX is far from perfect. But it’s pretty amazing for what it is right now, and where it’s headed IMO.