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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#261

Post by yunohn »

chrismorgan wrote: post #218

On the Google Play Store, they have app IDs com.driver.coop and com.rider.coop. I figure these should be coop.drivers.driver and coop.drivers.rider. This suggests to me that Google aren’t verifying domain ownership in app IDs, which I find a tad surprising. I had just assumed they would, and thus that you could trust that apps on the Google Play Store with IDs like com.example.foo or io.github.example.foo were actual…

Play Store IDs use the "domain" style naming scheme, purely as a relic of Android apps being written in Java. Neither Java nor Play Store have ever mandated domain checking, and the IDs are up to the developer.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#262

Post by jrochkind1 »

gruez wrote: post #255
jrochkind1 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do investors invest in a founder-controlled company, where the founders have more than 50% stake? To make money, I would assume, is why they do it? I'm sure it's a barrier, but it apparently isn't one that rules out all investment, since investors do it with founder-controlled companies, right? There is even entirely non-voting stock, which people invest in. If it were decided through political processes that wor…

>To make money, I would assume, is why they do it? If the only option were a drivers cooperative, then yes they might go for it (although they're still going to be competing against other forms of investment, eg. other stocks). However that's rarely the case, because there's going to be non-cooperatives which don't have workers taking up 50% of the stake. >since investors do it with founder-controlled companies, righ…

They can still believe in the leadership of the project. After all, many investors invest without themselves having a majority stake. If you own 3% of a company, the other 97% might be other investors, or might be some other investors and some worker-owners, you still only own 3%. Not everyone thinks worker-owners are any less capable of making good decisions towards the success of the endeavor than investors, although I gather you do.

Sometimes worker-owned businesses do well in fact because the worker-owners are willing to put in more energy and sacrifice for their business than typical employees, worker-ownership can be a plus. (Obviously plenty fail too, not saying it's some kind of magic invulnerability).

But also investors sometimes invest in worker coops because they want to support a worker-owned business in addition to make money, some kind of values-based investing: https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/worker-cooperatives-are-fin...

Look, all I can say is this is an actual thing that happens, there are hybrid ownership worker coops taht also have investors, it literally exists in reality.

Here's more info, including targetted at potential investors: https://project-equity.org/about-us/publications/coop-invest...

As I keep saying, I agree there are reasons some investors rae reluctant to invest, and the government could provide subsidy or incentives to change that calculus somewhat, the same way the government does for all sorts of economic activity that is considered socially desirable. It's true that worker coops have barriers to raising capital, but this really is one way some have done it, despite the challenges, it literally happens in reality, so if you're trying to argue that it doesn't, that's a weird argument.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#263

Post by SirSourdough »

kaczordon wrote: post #244
jefb wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Juno[1] tried something like this in NYC back in the mid-2010's. They ended up getting acquired by Gett and discontinued their equity share ethos. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(company) Edit: Typo

So the workers all voted to be acquired?

From the wiki article:

“Juno initially had an equity structure that planned to give drivers fifty percent of the founder's equity by 2026, but this program was discontinued in 2017 when Juno was acquired by Gett.”

So I doubt much equity was in the hands of drivers at the time of the sale. Certainly doesn’t sound like it was first and foremost a co-op model.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#264

Post by lotsofpulp »

toast0 wrote: post #257
njoubert wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

> You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere and get a taxi at the taxi stand, but that never enabled a global company. Airports with local unlicensed taxi services generally have advertising in the airport for arrivals. Installing a new app in each city, and putting in payment information is more hassle (especially…

>You can get off an airplane just about anywhere and get a taxi at the taxi stand, but that never enabled a global company.

Because it didn't streamline the process as much as Uber/Lyft (and the use of internet). It's a big difference when you don't even need to talk to anyone.

>but you do it once per trip, just like the in flight entertainment app.

And that is enough friction to make Uber/Lyft worth it. The in flight entertainment app has a monopoly. If there was sufficient broadband access on the plane, no one would get the in flight entertainment app either.

However, I might download a new local app if I found out the local app's fare were sufficiently cheaper, since the friction of downloading a new app is relatively low.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#265

Post by lotsofpulp »

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?

They used to have roomkey.com and it would show you all the hotel chains' options. Was actually a very nice site, and you could quickly compare all the lowest rewards member pricing (lower than expedia or priceline offerings, since there was no commission to be paid).

They didn't advertise it for years and then and killed it for some reason.

It's also possible that certain markets (especially with expiring goods like hotels and airlines) earn sufficiently more money via price segmentation that it makes sense to pay middlemen. For example, if you have 100 rooms in a hotel, and you can sell 20 of the rooms for $x, the next 20 for 1.1$x, the next 20 for 1.3$x, the next 20 for 1.5$x, and the last 20 for 2$x, then the ability to price discriminate might be worth it.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#266

Post by philsnow »

kbos87 wrote: post #176

It's always surprised me that we haven't seem more attempts at co-op like models in spaces like this, and I'm happy to see it. Uber/Lyft strike me as thin businesses in the value that they actually provide both to riders and drivers. Yes, they were responsible for some initial innovation, but now the cat is out of the bag, and the concept could absolutely be applied in a business structure that is more profitable and…

> Getting initial traction with riders

I haven't really used lyft in a couple years but back then it seemed like most drivers were using both apps and preferred taking rides from lyft. Adding a third might not be hard.

Drivers can suggest riders download the co-op app (keep a QR code taped to the back of your headrests) and try to use it first, falling back to uber/lyft if there are no drivers nearby.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#267

Post by killerstorm »

toast0 wrote: post #257
njoubert wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

> You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere and get a taxi at the taxi stand, but that never enabled a global company. Airports with local unlicensed taxi services generally have advertising in the airport for arrivals. Installing a new app in each city, and putting in payment information is more hassle (especially…

With a local taxi stand, you don't know if that would be over-priced, if they accept your card, etc.

I've been in a situation where card should accepted in theory, but driver insists on cash, and I'm a kind of a person who doesn't like arguing.

Using a global brand which handles shit smoothly is valuable to consumers.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#268

Post by killerstorm »

njoubert wrote: post #180
kbos87 wrote: post #176

It's always surprised me that we haven't seem more attempts at co-op like models in spaces like this, and I'm happy to see it. Uber/Lyft strike me as thin businesses in the value that they actually provide both to riders and drivers. Yes, they were responsible for some initial innovation, but now the cat is out of the bag, and the concept could absolutely be applied in a business structure that is more profitable and…

The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value.

It's possible to make an app which works globally and connects you to local coops.

For example, it can be done using ... blockchain.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#269

Post by Mauricebranagh »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #127
psoots wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making some assumptions. Why can't programmers be workers in the coop and be part of the equation? Why can't forms of capital available to other startups be available to coops?

> Why can't forms of capital available to other startups be available to coops? ... because then it wouldn't be a co-op. The whole point of a co-op is that it is owned by the workers/producers/consumers instead of equity investors.

As long as the members co-operators own 50%+1 you can take external funding - doesn't always workout as Poptel found

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#270

Post by Mauricebranagh »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #109
psoots wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making some assumptions. Why can't programmers be workers in the coop and be part of the equation? Why can't forms of capital available to other startups be available to coops?

Hmm, they probably could be. But it may be difficult to recruit and retain good ones. Coops tend to have a compressed salary spectrum, which is good for lower wage workers like taco drivers, and bad for higher wage workers like programmers.

Does depend on coop - a fully flat worker coop is very rare
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