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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#291

Post by Kalium »

clarkevans wrote: post #187
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.

Cooperatives can expand by cooperating with other cooperatives -- a bunch of local cooperatives might nest to form a regional one, etc. Those regional ones could form a federation with a single identity for global operations. So, this problem can be addressed by cooperatives, it's just a different kind of structure that distributes power locally -- with centralized power deriving from the bottom up, by the membership…

One of the key advantages a large corporate model has over a small, local cooperative is the ability to effectively harness resources for shared infrastructure.

In the case of Uber and Lyft, that's all the technological infrastructure that goes into making the platforms work. This isn't a trivial amount of work that can be easily replicated by taxi companies or scrappy driver-owned coops, as attempts to do so have shown. As we're all familiar with, maintaining this infrastructure is also far from free or trivial.

Credit unions are an instructive example. Many offer membership in interoperative networks, but few are able to effectively compete with the customer-friendly offerings of big banks with centralized power structures. The ability to satisfy customers isn't some side-effect, it's a key goal. A localized organization that can't compete is worth nothing except as a cautionary tale.

With that in mind, I would say the organizational challenge of coops is thus: how to keep centralized infrastructure controlled by localized entities while being competitive with non-local entities.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#292

Post by Kalium »

tzs wrote: post #100
jasode wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. It's only the surface-level of an ride-hailing app that seems easy for worker-owned cooperatives to create. In reality, the extra expensive programming dollars required to tame the hidden complexity so that the app can present a seamless experience to the customers/passengers is a huge factor that works ag…

The overwhelming vast majority of reasons I've heard people give for preferring Uber/Lyft over regular taxis are (1) regular taxis could not be summoned via an app or web page, instead requiring a phone call or curbside hailing, and (2) their credit card terminals were often broken so that you had to pay cash. Both of those specific problem are solvable for most rides without going anywhere near the level of complexi…

> (1) regular taxis could not be summoned via an app or web page, instead requiring a phone call or curbside hailing

This is partially true. It wasn't just that taxis couldn't be summoned through an app. It was that when you tried to summon one, there was at best even odds of one showing up within 30 minutes. Drivers could and did take curbside hails as they saw fit, and a dispatch often seemed to amount to no more than a polite request.

I've used taxis apps in the years since Uber's debut. Replacing a phonecall that gets ignored with an app's request that gets ignored is not an improvement.

> (2) their credit card terminals were often broken so that you had to pay cash.

They essentially never were. Cabbies just prefer cash. The real issue here is that cabbies had no compunction about lying through their teeth and there were no consequences for this. The whole system was set up so that there was in-theory accountability but no in-reality accountability. Uber took this away entirely by forcing payment to be handled entirely via the app.

> That should be good enough to make them a viable alternative to Uber/Lyft for probably 95% or more of the rides in a US city.

With the above points in mind, things take on a slightly different character. Using Square accomplishes nothing except giving cabbies a slightly different thing to lie about. Without the assurance that your driver won't make random other stops or otherwise not show in a reasonable timeframe, the request app isn't that useful.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#293

Post by st_t »

I read recently an article that claims the Driver’s Co-op is “fighting Uber’s model” —but, having talked with most TDC’s key players, I believe what’s good for Uber is good for them too.

Fighting Uber’s model means three things: 1) replacing its app and network of contractors, 2) abolishing its third parties selling services to drivers like selling shovels to gold miners, and 3) strengthening state and federal labor laws giving workers wage protections and right to a union.

The Driver’s Coop may do 1, but they have resisted 2 and 3.

At most, I believe they are friendly competition to Uber, not yet the fighter that the labor and cooperative movements need. But/and I think the Driver’s Co-op to do better.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#294

Post by jessxdesign »

Kaze404 wrote: post #182
TulliusCicero wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would personally give up half of my income to work at a cooperative. Weirdly enough, I don't see many cooperatives hiring software engineers specifically.

You're in luck! Driver's Seat Co-op is currently hiring for a software engineer and UX/UI designer. The founders are smart and committed and also just really thoughtful and kind guys. https://www.driversseat.co/careers

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#295

Post by jessxdesign »

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.

Actually, there are a lot of high wage workers like programmers who opt to work in co-ops because the ownership model aligns with their values and they find the work both financially and also intellectually and emotionally fulfilling. You need look no further than Ampled.com, which has a robust team of "contributors" who are all working to build and improve the platform on a volunteer basis. Ampled has built a system to track everyone's contributions which will be honored down the road once the co-op has more $ in the bank. And these are top notch folks who have come from Kickstarter and other related platforms (and who also clearly have a lot of economic privilege to be able to work in this arrangement for the time-being).

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#296

Post by jessxdesign »

sokoloff wrote: post #112
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 would a VC invest in a co-op? What would be the exit strategy that would allow them to be paid off at the multiple needed to compensate for the risk? In a worker-owned co-op, there is none, so they won’t have access to venture capital as Uber could raise. They can get different types of financing perhaps.

Unless they use revenue-based financing, a VC wouldn't invest in co-ops. As you point out, their need for an exit strategy that revolves around an increase in the price of equity doesn't align well with co-ops striving for building longer-term wealth for their community. That's why we see co-ops funded through loan funds, angel investment, and a new breed of equity funds trying to fill the gap, like The Equitable Economy Fund (https://www.equitablefund.net/)

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#297

Post by jessxdesign »

m_ke wrote: post #102

Here’s a recent interview with them https://youtu.be/VykTBPKwYnA I’ve been considering starting a software coop to build open source versions of these middleman gig work services for a while. Would anyone on here be interested in joining one? With so many well paid engineers I’m also surprised that there’s not more coop based tech startups in the states.

Give us a shout over at Start.coop if you decide to go this direction. We have lots of resources and supports available to help you get off the ground.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#298

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#299

Post by basch »

m_ke wrote: post #208
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.

There's no reason why we can't have a coop based version of a WeChat like super app with all of these services on a single shared platform. Most people don't get on planes that often so the value of global scale is not something that would prevent them from getting disrupted in a place like NYC. I'd be willing to pay a large premium for gig work if I knew that 95% of it went to the worker and they weren't being explo…

I'd argue that standardization at the protocol level benefits almost everyone more than the current paradigms. Any app works with any taxi network.

I want to use Lyft as my client, great. I land in a city, and I can ping drivers working for any pool, co-op, or team.

WeChat just replaced the AppStore/OS. If each service is its own entity inside WeChat, youve just nested the problem one level down. The client browser should be completely divorced from the rest of the network. There should be an IMAP/HTTP level hailing protocol. You want gmail but I want outlook, great we can still talk to each other.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#300

Post by itake »

snicker7 wrote: post #288
itake wrote: post #280

I am curious how they tackle safety issues within the coop. Uber, Lyft, and other big players have teams of engineers improving the safety of the platform (e.g. banning duplicate accounts of bad actors, banning people from re-creating accounts, identifying and removing fraud). I'm skeptical that the team behind the drivers.coop could deliver a fair and scalable safe service for both the riders and drivers. For exampl…

A coop is just another corporation, just with a different ownership model. This means they will likely have to hire engineers, customer service, business analysts, lobbyists, an executive team, &c. None of your examples is unachievable with a coop. The main blocker is initial capital acquisition.

All of these things are expensive to build, but achievable when you operate in many cities or countries.

I am not seeing how a handful of drivers in NYC could fund the infrastructure and talent required to deliver these types of features that passengers have grown accustomed to.

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