No, that doesn't work in practice. The network effects are so insanely dominant in open source projects that forks are nowhere near an efficient market.
The market doesn't have to be anywhere near efficient. It just has to allow any escape whatsoever from a death-march/death spiral.
Also this seems like a misuse of the term "survivorship bias". You claimed upthread that forks don't work because of network effects. The response was "some forks work". That is a direct refutation, no matter what the percentages are. Besides, you're misunderstanding the varied purposes of forks. I have several forks right now, not because I hate the original maintainers but because it was convenient to change a small thing for my own purposes. Whether or not upstream eventually agrees with me, my fork "works" perfectly well.