I think David Graeber and David Wengrove make a case that it has worked in bigger communities too.

Americans love to pretend they are cowboys. In reality they love centralised power and bureaucracy. They are deeply afraid of each other so they flock to platforms that pretend to be for freedom, but is actually highly regulated by centralised power. That’s why they love tech-oligarchs that pretend to be self made geniuses. It allows them to fantasise about freedom to succeed and submit to power at the same time.

Unfortunately they wont.People will rather use an unsecure Windows version than try something new.