Give your best estimate on how much dollar value of creation is wasted every hour GitHub PRs are down
There's a lot of cowboy development going on out there. Why not take this opportunity to talk to your customers for a bit? Make sure you're still building the right things.
At any decently-sized org, the developers are not allowed to talk to customers on their own accord.
If the business is afraid to let you email the customer, you might need to work on your communications skills and go through some intentional demonstration efforts. For example, "Good morning <boss>, here's a draft of what I think we should send <CTO's name @ customer> regarding their feedback on the last build.".
That's literally all it takes to get into the game. Don't ask for permission to write the draft because then your managers will think it's gonna be this big ordeal and they'll definitely say no.
At a B2C, I would not email a customer directly without sign-off. We have marketing teams, research teams, comms, customer support, etc. I would be stepping on so many toes, and risking brand reputation, if I were to interact with our customers.
This has been the case before VCSes existed.