well?
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As you say: try organizing the exchange of goods and services without money and see how far you get. You'll either get ripped off, generate ill-will when you rip the other guy off, or nobody will want to trade. Money provides an instantaneous exchange of value that is liquid and universally accepted by others. The problem isn't money.
The problem is our money has no value. It can change on a dime and the labour you put in to building your friends house can become worth a single loaf of bread overnight. That's bullshit.
Precious metals work because they're finite and, more importantly, useful; they will never drop to zero. Paper money that can be redeemed for precious metals *can* work if the exchanger can be trusted. Paper money based on "muh economy", the flow of money, is worth nothing because you can't actually lay hands on it.
Money isn't the solution, but it *is* a prerequisite.
The solution is people spending their money in ways that will benefit their group.
The middle class fucked themselves by spending all their money on vacations (in foreign countries), luxury goods (made in China), and interest generating investments (benefitting you know who).
Imagine if they spent all that excess wealth, the most the middle class has *ever* controlled, on their families, neighbours, and cities?
The city I live in was built by farmers, factory owners, and local merchants; not exactly poor, but definitely not upper class in any scale beyond their locale. They built, with their own money, organised through municipal (voluntary) subscriptions: roads, an electrical grid, schools, street lights, running water, gas, and everything else we think of as being city-run today.
I have yet to meet a Boomer that didn't do everything in their power to avoid paying taxes while, at the same time, refusing to contribute their money to anything local. They have no problem sending their cash to "starving Africans" but it's "the government's" problem if kids are starving in their own town.
I don't pay taxes either, but I make sure to contribute to my local community when I see the need. If everyone did the same, we could drop the whole government tax scheme and go back to what it started as: a way to organise local effort and voluntary funding for shared concerns.