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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#301

Post by jrochkind1 »

gruez wrote: post #279
jrochkind1 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, althou…

>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%. That's not exactly the same. If you invest in a regular company, the other 97% of investors contributed capital, making the company worth more. On the other hand, in a owner coop the 50% (or wha…

Buddy, I don't know what you are trying to argue for.

Worker-owned coops exist, thousands of them. Some of them have investors. Some of them fail, some of them have been in business for decades. Yes, raising capital can be challenging for worker-owned coops, my first post on the topic literally said that. But there are ways it can be done, that have actually been done.

I gather you think worker-owned coops are a terrible idea, that's fine you're entitled to your opinion.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#302

Post by rsj_hn »

jfengel wrote: post #246
gvb wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The single benefit of Uber having a global presence likely already outweighs the value of these local coops. That and a willingness to subsidize rides to the tune of billions of dollars per year. A coop is going to struggle to provide rides at a "competitive" rate when the competition is paying people to use their services. "For all of 2020, Uber's net losses amounted to $6.77 billion..." Ref: https://www.cnbc.com/…

What is causing Uber's losses? The customers are paying money, the drivers are getting only a fraction of it. Are the drivers actually getting more money than the customers are paying? Are Uber's data center and transaction costs really high? Or is it the armies of lawyers and business development people? The basic value proposition of ride share seems viable. If Uber's losses are overhead, maybe somebody can compete…

Yes, the the customers pay more money than the drivers get, but from that difference Uber must pay the salaries of all their software developers, they must pay for infrastructure, they must pay for app development, product managers, hr, etc.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#303

Post by TulliusCicero »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #270
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.

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

Not fully flat, no; just compressed.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#304

Post by TulliusCicero »

jessxdesign wrote: post #295
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.

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…

Agreed, people who believe it ideologically will be attracted. It just seems like that would still make it hard to recruit if the money is much worse, though -- there are only so many people willing to take a huge pay cut.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#305

Post by bob1029 »

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…

I've been considering unconventional business models for software development teams, and something like this has crossed my mind a few times.

What I ultimately dream of doing is assembling something like what seal team 6 is to the US armed forces. How do you build an organization around that model? It takes many layers to filter the talent appropriately and protect the most capable players throughout. How do you achieve a similar effect on a small scale? Coding interviews are clearly not the most fantastic way to judge the capabilities of a software developer. I would have to find some new thing that is virtually failsafe, or I would have to find outside investors which ruins the whole thing. If I bootstrap with my own money, no one can stop me from doing what I want and then bestowing that same freedom upon other team members over time.

Maybe I could write a "game" and release it to the steam store. It could be a thinly-veiled programming challenge spanning many hundreds of hours of "gameplay", which tests for the exact qualities I would be looking for. This game would be the equivalent of enrolling in BUD/S training. The first 10 people to complete it with a perfect ending get a number directly to my cellphone with monetary offer & NDA presented on-screen.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#306

Post by Kaze404 »

jessxdesign wrote: post #294
Kaze404 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thank you! Seems like a great opportunity. Applied :)

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#307

Post by comex »

tzs wrote: post #201
jasode wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For most US cities you could cover the payment needs of most riders with something from Square installed in the car. That's a good example of driver-centric thinking instead of holistic thinking that considers the paying passengers . Consider: what if the customers/passengers actually prefer the convenience of not having to mess with an extra payment transaction step before exiting the car?!? With service like Uber,…

I think you are overestimating the inconvenience of paying at or near the destination. Most passengers will have smart phones with them, most of which support NFC payments. Double tap the side button on your iPhone (or whatever is equivalent on non-Apple phones), hold it near the reader for two seconds, and you are done. Heck, a large fraction of the passengers won't even have to reach into their pocket to get their…

I'm confused. Who benefits from using a physical credit card terminal instead of an app in the first place? If you don't want to implement all the payment methods Uber does, and you're willing to settle with only credit cards... why not just have in-app payment that only supports credit cards?

The obvious answer would be "so that the user doesn't have to have the app", but if the user doesn't have an app, how is that different from an old fashioned taxi service?

Beyond the fact that the credit card terminal isn't broken... but it's not like the rider would know that ahead of time.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#308

Post by itisit »

tootie wrote: post #216
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…

I hope food delivery is next.

There are friendlier options already out there. Slice and ChowNow come to mind.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#309

Post by sdenton4 »

fractionalhare wrote: post #206
bayindirh wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A local coop doesn't have to go worldwide to be meaningful. Not all businesses shall grow indefinitely. If they can get a core customer base and hold it steady, it'd be much more valuable and impressive over time. They try to make a living, not to dominate the world for money.

If you're competing in a winner-take-all market, it is very difficult to compete without shooting for domination. I don't know if digital ride hailing is a winner-take-all market, but there's pretty compelling evidence it could be. But I also don't think that commenter is disagreeing with you - when they say huge value, they're probably gesturing towards the fact that consumers will generally use whatever the most co…

Winner take all can be regional, though, with different winners in every city. Look at the phone companies, for example.

For taxis, drivers already use multiple apps. What could happen here is that drivers keep driving for uber, but advertise for the better paying app with everyone who gets into their car. Then all the local riders switch over to the coop app, and the drivers still driver uber a bit for the it of towners

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#310

Post by sdenton4 »

bob1029 wrote: post #305
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…

I've been considering unconventional business models for software development teams, and something like this has crossed my mind a few times. What I ultimately dream of doing is assembling something like what seal team 6 is to the US armed forces. How do you build an organization around that model? It takes many layers to filter the talent appropriately and protect the most capable players throughout. How do you achi…

It's pretty common for worker coops to have a probationary period. So you hire normally, but the full membership kicks in after six months and a vote.
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