I heard a fascinating interview with Sandeep Vaheesan[1]

He said in the early days of American electrification, private power companies wouldn't build lines to rural customers because it wasn't expected to be profitable. So rural customers joined together and formed public power companies and got the job done. Not only that, they innovated many cost saving technique which the private power companies eventually adopted.

Public power cooperatives still exist, but have themselves become ossified and commercialized over the years.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miyfj98lR38 (starts at 21:18)