The classic counterexample to the chain (where each link is a SPOF) is the braided cable or rope, in which each individual strand shares the load collectively, and loss of some fraction of the total strands won't itself cause failure.

That's not to say that cables or ropes cannot fail, but when they do so, failure of many individual components is required.

A recent example is the failure of support cables for the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico in 2020. This was the result of a progressive failure played out over months, though at an accelerating rate, until the final catastrophic failure and loss of the instrument as a whole. (This wasn't wholly unforseen and was precipitated by a long period of rather intentional neglect of maintenance.)

Even after the failure of two complete cables, the remaining cables supported the load of Arecibo's instrument platform. On 1 December 2020, strands of one of the remaining cables began breaking, at an accelerating rate, leading to the total failure of that cable, then a second and third, and with it loss of the instrument platform. The final moments were captured on video.

Sequence begins at about 55s here: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=b3AASKr_iHc