I wonder if there are any large, successful open source projects that are leaderless and function well without a social hierarchy?
If non-hierarchical social structures are really more effective, such examples should be easy to find, no?
On the other hand, maybe their absence only indicates that online communities simply tend to mirror the social structures of offline communities, or that they're just mostly made up of people who prefer hierarchies.
tl;dr - hierarchies will form whether you want them to or not. If you refuse to endorse an official structure, you'll simply get an unofficial (and more often than not, unaccountable) one instead.
If non-hierarchical social structures are really more effective, such examples should be easy to find, no?
On the other hand, maybe their absence only indicates that online communities simply tend to mirror the social structures of offline communities, or that they're just mostly made up of people who prefer hierarchies.