I think this is true of a lot of things that are 'in our house' (or on our property). A fatuous hypothetical example might be a large central refrigerator shared between multiple properties.

The apartment building I live in has large central boilers for the hot water, to save space in the apartments. This benefitted the property developer, and is probably more energy efficient (although, just like our solar power example, transmission loss needs to be accounted for), but has downsides for the apartment residents.

A better example is private vehicle ownership, as opposed to public transport. It's a good example of something that has moved from a more centralised control to individual control, with benefits and downsides.