Shout out to Namma Yatri [1] app in Bengaluru, India. It is developed by a payments startup called Juspay. It is endorsed by the Auto Rickshaw Drivers Union. It was launched in November of 2022 and has since done about 5m rides and drivers have earned 9m USD [2]. The entire app, backend and protocol is completely open source [3]. Seems like it uses a fair bit of Haskell and Nix!
The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
61–70 of 137 posts
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#62Shout out to Namma Yatri [1] app in Bengaluru, India. It is developed by a payments startup called Juspay. It is endorsed by the Auto Rickshaw Drivers Union. It was launched in November of 2022 and has since done about 5m rides and drivers have earned 9m USD [2]. The entire app, backend and protocol is completely open source [3]. Seems like it uses a fair bit of Haskell and Nix! [1] https://www.nammayatri.in [2] http…
As a customer, the app and service works really well. It is now my first choice to look for an Auto ride compared to Uber / Ola.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#63This is a fine effort, but FOSS is a minor part of it. The big thing is the money -- how much of the fare do the drivers keep; how many staff are required to run it; is the allocation of rides fair; can customers get what they want; how are drivers hired and fired; how are the executives chosen; etc.
There are lots of co-ops in many different industries. The Berkeley Cheeseboard is a co-op that's existed for decades. A lot of agricultural commodities are marketed via co-ops. It's all in how the business is run.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
parent gave five examples of issues they found while using a taxi in the manner you described you could have just believed them instead of being antagonistic about it, this is especially unnecessary given the topic has a history that supports the experiences the parent poster listed
it's funny the person is upset about some taxi driver cheating them, but okay with paying tribute to some app developer middleman with every trip
The wise man solemnly bowed his head and said “there’s actually zero difference between free exchange of currency for service and fraud.”
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#65Oh man, a friend and I were thinking of building out a FOSS Uber clone for this exact purpose. Would allow a bunch of smaller regional Ubers to exist. Couldn't get funding and I don't have free time to write that much code. Hope these folks are able to succeed. FOSS is a great path for workers to seize the means of production.
> Couldn’t get funding Can’t imagine why.
I'll tell you why: my friend, our lead investor and champion, with connections to a few driver-communities unexpectedly died.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#66Oh man, a friend and I were thinking of building out a FOSS Uber clone for this exact purpose. Would allow a bunch of smaller regional Ubers to exist. Couldn't get funding and I don't have free time to write that much code. Hope these folks are able to succeed. FOSS is a great path for workers to seize the means of production.
> FOSS is a great path for workers to seize the means of production. It's... not. Open Source is not a business model, nor a collective organizing principle, bargaining process, etc. It's just source code a couple of people have commit access to. I'm all in favor of everybody sharing source code too, but let's not pretend it's magic. Building and sustaining any kind of organization takes work , and has nothing to do…
>It's... not. Open Source is not a business model, nor a collective organizing principle, bargaining process, etc. It's just source code a couple of people have commit access to.
It's... not. (just access to source)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
in fact that's one of the driving characteristic differences between open source and FOSS; one is accompanied with a set of guiding moral and ethical principals regarding fundamental user freedom.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#67"Digital" cooperatives using (optionally) open source platforms is an idea that should be much more explored imho.
The concept applies to so many verticals involving small companies or individual operators (from taxis, to hotels, to restaurants, to real estate agents, local bookstores, cinemas, to game developers etc. etc.)
The inability of large numbers of small entities to coordinate and cooperate in the digital era means they create the conditions for third parties to completely take over the intermediation with clients and use that leverage to extract unreasonably large rents.
In fact the extreme "taxes" small businesses and individuals have to pay to shrewd digital platform owners are multiples of the cost of development of the platforms themselves.
In other words, if a collection of independent entities cannot get they act together to codevelop digital infastructure (that will benefit all of them) somebody else will do it for them and will be eating their lunch.
This reclaiming of their market / ownership of digital tools might be challenging in conditions of rapid technical innovation. The autocracy of a top-down corporate structure is more effective than a democratic collective. Yet despite incessant marketing noise currently we are in a rather stagnating phase so there is a window of opportunity to reclaim some agency.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#68Doesn't uber lose money, that's why they can undercut everyone else.
Nobody is going to pay more money, Ie every other service that requires a profit, compared to just uber.
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe by AI they mean it uses big data as well like historical traffic to more accurately set the weights of the vertices.
Possibly, but today EVERY nontrivial piece of software is "AI". It's the new "synergy" for dipshits spouting nonsense. FYI: in MBA speak, "AI" is now anything that can't be hacked together on top of airtable, outsourced, or done by someone with a GED and six months of bootcamping. If you need someone who isn't perceived as interchangeable cog labor to help build the thing then it's now called AI. Was just in a meetin…
So just engineering?
Isn't that predicted effect of AI adoption? :)
Re: The Drivers Cooperative: New York’s driver-owned ride-hailing app
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> FOSS is a great path for workers to seize the means of production. It's... not. Open Source is not a business model, nor a collective organizing principle, bargaining process, etc. It's just source code a couple of people have commit access to. I'm all in favor of everybody sharing source code too, but let's not pretend it's magic. Building and sustaining any kind of organization takes work , and has nothing to do…
>It's... not. Open Source is not a business model, nor a collective organizing principle, bargaining process, etc. It's just source code a couple of people have commit access to. It's... not. (just access to source) https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... in fact that's one of the driving characteristic differences between open source and FOSS; one is accompanied with a set of guiding moral an…
None of that is related how you organize a business using the code though.