Is that true? Perhaps Wework did / does some unique things I'm unaware of.
As per [0] - co-working spaces started ~25 years ago, and by the time WeWork was founded (2010) there were at least 300 co-working spaces operating in the USA.
[0] https://helio.se/en/magazine/the-colorful-history-of-coworki...
They'd often provide pretty bare-bones service - no fancy coffee, just a fridge where everyone had to label their own milk.
They'd have mostly small/single-person offices which people worked in alone with the door closed. I've heard some people find a 'community' at wework offices, a bunch of closed doors of course provides no such thing.
And they mostly rented space to permanently small businesses, like one-person accountancy companies. Which is a fine way to make a living! But co-working spaces weren't a place you'd expect to network with people whose businesses were going to the moon.