Its not dead, just unreliable. Works for most purposes, including the government's purposes. Bitcoiners run their nodes behind Tor, and want little downtime. As the LN gets more robust though, it will be OK. LN, like the internet is good at routing around issues. Good to have a backup plan to make Bitcoin even more robust.

ode /ōd/

noun

a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.