Grid reliability for us is more "is there an outage today, and how long will it be"
Sure but that per se is not a reason to be off-grid. It's just a reason to have backup power.
Or look at it the other way round. If you have an off-grid system which supplies most of your energy needs, the grid makes for an excellent (all but unlimited) backup generator for when your system is a bit stretched.
You can now generate power without any grid involvement, and there are no more "reliability" problems.
Sure but no off-grid system is perfectly reliable either. They will fail / require downtime, maintenance and upkeep. Not everyone has or will maintain the technical skills, equipment and knowledge to be managing such things. You will need supplies, replacements, tools etc. Utilities keep these things on hand at the ready because maintenance is BAU for them.
I'm truly watching this AU development, to see what aspects of it turn out to be good, and what develops into issues ... it does get people off-grid with respect to outages from the grid, just still grid-tied with respect to billing/maintenance/etc.
Electricity supply, water supply, waste water treatment, gas supply. Not everyone can live on a rural block with the space to do all this.
And not everyone wants or needs to do everything themselves when there are organisations and businesses who do it better and more efficiently.
Do you build your own car? Grow the timber to be used to build your home? Supply every item of food you eat? Do you build your own internet servers and communications infrastructure to connect to the WWW or phone system? Electricity supply is just another service, and not everyone wants to look after an energy supply system when they have better things to do with their time.
In the end what you are I are expressing are really just cultural differences. Each society has a different blend of the values of independence and interdependence. It's a spectrum and thinking being on one part of the spectrum is better than another is really no more than an exercise in self justification.
As a society we just happen to think being interconnected is somewhat more valuable than a culture which leans more heavily towards every man or woman for themselves. Others think differently.
It's almost always a great deal, just not always a great deal for the end-customer.
Again, *by law*, people serviced by these utility managed off-grid supply systems pay the same for their electricity service and supply as everyone else on the grid. Making out as if they are going to pay more is completely misleading.
Frankly I want our utilities to be able to reliably delivery power for lower cost as that benefits everyone. In Australia, again by law, the (regional monopoly) power distribution companies have their income regulated. The price they can charge is set.
If in remote WA you can reliably supply sufficient power 24/7 for the prices they are charging, then knock yourself out. No one is stopping you.