Wow, I wonder how do they manage to cover the expenses of running a tech startup? We know that software business is capital and intellectual property heavy. How do these people do it?
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The Drivers Cooperative
11–20 of 333 posts
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#12I would probably pay 20% more and wait twice as long to contribute to a worker owned coop with each ride. Come to sf asap!
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#13One of the most amazing things to me is that a couple of large hotel chains can't come up with a hotel reservation coop that would compete/throw out with bookin.com et al. If you worry about competition, just found two or three competing coops and be member of them all. SEO? If most hotels are nowhere but in the coop platforms, how can google not display them at top?
Mariott Bonvoy chain has member rates for a reason, and they are great, although they could be more predictable so that I could search on booking.com and know the member pricing.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#14Some background on their crowd funding is here. Looks lkke they raised 20k last year. Scrappy! https://ioby.org/project/help-nyc-drivers-launch-platform-co...
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#15I hope this takes off. Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. I would gladly (and will try to next time I'm in NYC) use this service over Uber or Lyft. Power to the drivers!
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#16One of the most amazing things to me is that a couple of large hotel chains can't come up with a hotel reservation coop that would compete/throw out with bookin.com et al. If you worry about competition, just found two or three competing coops and be member of them all. SEO? If most hotels are nowhere but in the coop platforms, how can google not display them at top?
Mariott Bonvoy chain has member rates for a reason, and they are great, although they could be more predictable so that I could search on booking.com and know the member pricing.
Can you tell us a bit more about your experience with them? And costs?
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#17One of the most amazing things to me is that a couple of large hotel chains can't come up with a hotel reservation coop that would compete/throw out with bookin.com et al. If you worry about competition, just found two or three competing coops and be member of them all. SEO? If most hotels are nowhere but in the coop platforms, how can google not display them at top?
This is a really good question with a frustratingly simple answer: OTAs like Booking.com have "rate parity" contracts guaranteeing them equal rates to the hotels' direct booking sites and any other channels they use: https://businessblog.trivago.com/rate-parity-hotel-industry-... - and these have de facto been upheld in the US court system.
So if you're a hotel deciding whether to invest resources into your own branding and marketing, vs. investing it into a brand new coop that itself can't undercut the household-name OTAs that are spending vast amounts of marketing dollars and years of SEO work to make household names, you'll invest in yourself.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#18One of the most amazing things to me is that a couple of large hotel chains can't come up with a hotel reservation coop that would compete/throw out with bookin.com et al. If you worry about competition, just found two or three competing coops and be member of them all. SEO? If most hotels are nowhere but in the coop platforms, how can google not display them at top?
This is a really good question with a frustratingly simple answer: OTAs like Booking.com have "rate parity" contracts guaranteeing them equal rates to the hotels' direct booking sites and any other channels they use: https://businessblog.trivago.com/rate-parity-hotel-industry-... - and these have de facto been upheld in the US court system. So if you're a hotel deciding whether to invest resources into your own brand…
Charge a $1/month membership billed annually to the coop site, and offer a $25 rebate to any coop members when they book a room.
Make it very easy to become a member while booking the room... $100/night + $12 coop fee, and after you check-in you get a $25 rebate. The OTAs would still get the $100 price, but hotel would effectively charging $87.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#19I hope this is successful. For a couple of years I’ve been telling people how bad demand aggregation platforms are because of the way they commoditize supply for important things like labor providers and small businesses.
A supply side coop is the only way to defeat demand aggregation IMO. Hopefully we see more of this because I think the economy is a lot healthier with a lost of fair value, mutually beneficial relationships instead of the current trend of exploiting everyone and everything within sight.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative
#20I would probably pay 20% more and wait twice as long to contribute to a worker owned coop with each ride. Come to sf asap!
The thing is that it shouldn’t have to cost more unless Uber is massively subsidizing rides. Once the platform is built the incremental cost of adding a driver or customer should be very low and, by cutting out an unnecessary rent seeking middle man, you have better margins.