I think the author's underlying point is that all of the decentralised applications she's talking about rely on their having a large number of users communicating with one another in order to do what they're supposed to do, and that decentralised systems often perform poorly in terms of getting enough users for them to achieve that goal.
Imagine you came up with a technically superior version of email, and it functioned technically perfectly, but you were unable to convince anyone else to use it. Sure, it would "work" technically in a narrow functional sense, but it wouldn't "work" in terms of doing what it was actually designed to do. My taking LSD isn't really affected by other people doing so or not: it's a private thing. But my sending an email is: it's a network interaction.
The author's claim is correct in the sense that, if you hold a party and no-one comes, the party didn't really work.
Imagine you came up with a technically superior version of email, and it functioned technically perfectly, but you were unable to convince anyone else to use it. Sure, it would "work" technically in a narrow functional sense, but it wouldn't "work" in terms of doing what it was actually designed to do. My taking LSD isn't really affected by other people doing so or not: it's a private thing. But my sending an email is: it's a network interaction.
The author's claim is correct in the sense that, if you hold a party and no-one comes, the party didn't really work.