Maybe, but I'm just talking about the potential here.

Most type of volunteer works require more people, with some level of organizations before it becomes effective.

While open-source software projects are often started by one very good SWE, as a hobby, in his own time: a very low barrier of entry. Plus, a project can live with a solo maintainer for a very long time. Though, I digress that can be detrimental in the long run, like the recent xz-utils fiasco.