I remember it very differently. I remember remarkably good reliability, to the point that HN would regularly laud GitHub for “doing it right” by investing heavily in infrastructure and reliability and being “boring”. I remember some GitHub leader or founder affirming that sentiment, that they’ve always felt their value proposition depends greatly on reliability. I remember it didn’t change as soon as MS took over, but a year or so later, and that for the first few years of diminishing reliability people would always point fingers at the MS takeover.