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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#31

Post by gonehome »

tomdell wrote: post #2

It’s encouraging that initiatives like this seem to be popping up more often - co-operatives of workers looking to cut out corporate middlemen. It will be an uphill climb, but I hope this is the future. The technical moats of a lot of recently minted tech companies don’t seem to be so great that they can’t be overcome with time and open source work. The inertia and efficiency that comes with scale will be harder to c…

Do others have better experiences with co-ops than I do?

I know people love REI, but whenever I go in there to buy anything that requires someone (ski boots, skis, work on skis) - it sucks. There's never anyone available, it often takes up to an hour or more to get helped or waiting in line. Sometimes I have to leave and come back later. Last time I gave up and ordered everything online.

It's not like it's crazy packed in there either, it's pretty empty - there's just nobody working there.

Co-ops are supposed to be better about aligning incentives, but at least for me I've often had worse experiences as a customer.

Uber and Lyft work pretty well (for the most part, except for when drivers cancel on you) - I'd be surprised if a co-op could pull off a similarly good experience for riders.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#32

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #25

I'm going to give this a real try. I live in Brooklyn Heights, NYC. My GF is having a birthday party/gala in Harlem at 140th and Broadway. I'm going to try this for traveling to Kerri's birthday party.

Yo, why are you broadcasting these details, how many strangers do you want to show up at her party?

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#33

Post by [deleted] »

btown wrote: post #17
beefield wrote: post #8

One 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…

[deleted]

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#35

Post by ugh123 »

bberenberg wrote: post #9
beefield wrote: post #8

One 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?

Antitrust?

Yeah that sounds like price fixing.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#36

Post by om2 »

Accomplishments on their page include: * Purchased ridehailing app code and completed customizations for NYC launch

I wonder who sold them the code and who did the customizations. Do they have software engineers on staff? Do they own and operate their own servers? Or is there someone out there selling/renting a white-label rideshare app/service?

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#37

Post by nerdponx »

om2 wrote: post #36

Accomplishments on their page include: * Purchased ridehailing app code and completed customizations for NYC launch I wonder who sold them the code and who did the customizations. Do they have software engineers on staff? Do they own and operate their own servers? Or is there someone out there selling/renting a white-label rideshare app/service?

> Or is there someone out there selling/renting a white-label rideshare app/service

Via I believe was involved in something like this.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#38

Post by cwyers »

christiansakai wrote: post #4

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?

It seems like this only works in New York, which is probably a much smaller scale than Uber has to serve.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#39

Post by hobofan »

crowf wrote: post #24

> So any profits will go back to the drivers. Thanks to Hollywood accounting, does this have any meaning?

I don't know about the US, but in Germany coops have pretty strict auditing guidelines. Since Hollywood accounting would divert money to the coop, which is also owned by the drivers, you would by diverting money from the drivers to the drivers, which obviously doesn't make any sense.

Of course there are also concerns that the coop administration might be too fat and lining their own pockets, but through the auditing combined with the fact that the board is normally elected by the members, the members have quite some control measures to keep the administration honest.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#40

Post by hkt »

om2 wrote: post #36

Accomplishments on their page include: * Purchased ridehailing app code and completed customizations for NYC launch I wonder who sold them the code and who did the customizations. Do they have software engineers on staff? Do they own and operate their own servers? Or is there someone out there selling/renting a white-label rideshare app/service?

There are a number of companies selling white labelled uber-ish apps. My local taxi company uses this one: https://riide.co/fleetsignup/

It makes sense that there's a big market for this stuff and as much sense that a cooperative would form eventually. Uber didn't invent the taxi, after all.

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