I guess it’s more often than not a mix of both. My first commune experience happened in Germany, where lack of resources wasn’t really a thing back then. We went dumpster diving (because we were too young and urban to know how to garden), did some jobs, got some money from the state … The communes I see happening now are mostly young people moving out to Southern Europe and wanting to homestead. A lot are very disappointed with their first commune experience and give up after a short time. And in that case it’s often a mix of all of those things: lack of resources, the steep learning curve of handling a homestead in an unknown climate, learn a new culture, handle the difference between expectation and reality, and then get on with others you maybe only just met through all these problems.

But also, more resources are available (back then in my commune days there was no internet or we were too Luddite to start using it). Online you can find dire warnings like my paragraph above, but also information about when to seed carrots, how to milk a goat, how to organize and moderate a community meeting etc. So you do have more and more places succeeding and doing land restoration, permaculture and agroforestry.