> ancient societies had more in-person community and common free third-spaces

For the elites. Most people in the population were doing back-breaking labor.

I'm not saying there wasn't leisure. But when most of a society's labor goes into agriculture, most of the leisure time is going to be spent on the farm with fellow farmhands. (The exception being winter months.)

Medieval serfs typically worked about 150 10 hour days a year.

In addition to the winter months there's a lot of gaps where the plants are in the ground, and now just need intermittent maintenance.

All of this of course ignores women's work, which was more omnipresent across the year. But it was also pretty social as well, hence the lasting power of phrases like "sewing circles".