> How does being docker compose based make it inaccessible?

Because it requires people to also have knowledge about the ins and outs of docker and docker compose. If we are talking about web applications it is yet another layer that has been added over the years. It used to be that you could fairly easily host most things on a old fashioned lamp host (I am talking decades ago) and all you had to know was basic file transferring.

Of course, this was on shared webhosts in a time when VPSes were not really a thing yet or affordable. But, even on a VPS setting up a LAMP stack is relatively straightforward.

Once you add modern dockerized application to that mix you are now still looking at some sort of ingress to do the reverse proxy bit. So while it likely will not be Apache or nginx there will be some sort of layer there in addition to now having to setup docker properly (rootless and all that) and then also making sure your docker compose setup is in order.

It is not difficult *once you know how to* but it is another layer of knowledge and experience people need to acquire. That does make it less accessible for novices.