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The Drivers Cooperative

drivers.coop

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Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#231

Post by missedthecue »

anticristi wrote: post #48
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?

I always wondered why airlines are not pilot-owned.

Airlines are literally among the most capital intensive industry out there. Where are some pilots getting their first billion for aircraft, flight scheduling, landing slots, fuel, maintenance contracts, etc...

Notice how most employee co-ops such as law firms have essentially zero capex requirements. They don't need startup capital that necessitates shareholders.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#232

Post by [deleted] »

nhoughto wrote: post #154

It’s a nice idea, can’t imagine they can match the UX polish lyft and Uber deliver, which is what users expect now. What other examples are there of do-it-for-the-cause tech plays working out? Interestingly i imagine a not insignificant amount of effort from Uber etc goes into combating drivers “bad” behaviors, the co-op model might align incentives to reduce this cost.

[deleted]

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#233

Post by specialist »

Neat. Responses, in no particular order.

Yay for co-ops, WDSEs, not-for-profits. Is that what this is? I expect stuff like charter, bylaws, list of board members, budget, etc. (Vs post-capitalist agitprop.) Here's Richard Wolff's popular treatment of this trend: https://www.democracyatwork.info For more context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management

Efforts like this validate the observations that ride hailing has no moat.

Eventually, we'll have white labeled ride hailing hosting companies. So you're a specialty transport group in Cincinnati, eg for elderly and wheelchair bound customers. You get your own branded and slightly customized version for your niche. The hosting companies do all the tech.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#234

Post by jasode »

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 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.

And I think you're falling into the same trap of believing other economic actors will happily agree to your proposed "solutions".

Disadvantages of NFC payments:

1) economic friction which lowers supply of drivers: drivers have to buy $50 NFC terminal from Square. $50 is not a lot of but it's extra financial friction which deters potential drivers

2) trust issues which lowers supply of paying customers: NFC payments puts the payment amount in control of the driver which makes potential customers fear getting scammed. In the Uber/Lyft model, this doesn't happen which is a significant psychological advantage because drivers are notorious for playing games with payment (especially with foreigners and travelers). By letting the "service in the cloud" pay the drivers on behalf of the passengers, it adds accountability.

I'm not claiming it's impossible to create a car-on-demand service that uses NFC and/or credit-card swipes. I'm saying it would be a disadvantage to other platforms that work more conveniently. This means less paying customers which leads to less capital to continuously improve the software -- which could then lead to more customers abandoning the co-op rideshare app for the more polished Uber/Lyft apps.

Again, see the failed non-profit RideAustin losing riders as somewhat analogous case study. And see the other comment about the apparent low quality of this thread's app (Drivers.coop): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26592354

The co-op needs capital to improve the app software and you need a virtuous cycle of paying customers that don't avoid (or abandon) the platform to provide that ongoing capital.

>co-op would not have to make riders create accounts and associate payment information with them. That removes some complexity for the user,

This wouldn't be an advantage for commuters that use Uber/Lyft daily.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#235

Post by kspacewalk2 »

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.

They'll focus on the local customers. I don't know what percentage that is in a touristy city like NY, but surely it's more than half.

In my (non-touristy) city, this isn't important. The overwhelming majority of Uber users are locals. Ignoring out of towners will work just fine.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#236

Post by mitchdoogle »

aerosmile wrote: post #217

I would rather be dead in a ditch than set foot in one of their cars. Because I expect it would be basically the same thing. Their website has thousands of words about how horrible Uber and Lyft are, but not one word about how they are going to approach trust and safety. I really hope there's an experienced labor marketplace executive in the room who knows anything about this business, rather than a bunch of drivers…

The world is not so dangerous as you imagine it to be. A stranger approaching a child and offering a ride is a dangerous situation. Adults hailing a car through an advertised driving service is not. You might as well be scared to walk out your front door as well.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#237

Post by aerosmile »

mitchdoogle wrote: post #236
aerosmile wrote: post #217

I would rather be dead in a ditch than set foot in one of their cars. Because I expect it would be basically the same thing. Their website has thousands of words about how horrible Uber and Lyft are, but not one word about how they are going to approach trust and safety. I really hope there's an experienced labor marketplace executive in the room who knows anything about this business, rather than a bunch of drivers…

The world is not so dangerous as you imagine it to be. A stranger approaching a child and offering a ride is a dangerous situation. Adults hailing a car through an advertised driving service is not. You might as well be scared to walk out your front door as well.

I wish you were right. But if you spend a minute talking to people who work in trust and safety at those companies, you'll want to give them a hug.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#238

Post by gvb »

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.

> 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/2021/02/10/uber-earnings-q4-2020-.html

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#239

Post by chaos_emergent »

sandworm101 wrote: post #166
jwr wrote: post #79

This is doubly ironic and amusing if you think about how Uber/Lyft were "disrupting" the existing markets. Well, market forces are at work: if Uber/Lyft provide no additional value over drivers' work (and treat drivers as disposable assets), they themselves will get "disrupted" and the drivers will get rid of them :-) Happy to see this happening, and I wonder how this will develop.

I applaud the effort, but the problem with a collective is that they are, legally speaking, a soft target. Uber can afford to break laws, run at a local loss, and generally throw its weight around a new market. Cooperatives don't have such deep pockets. They will leave town as soon as a some local interest resists. They aren't going to survive multi-year fights with cities or organizations like the London cabs.

Part of the design of Coops is that they are the local interest. It’s much less likely that they will encounter local resistance than a VC-backed Silicon Valley overlord.

Re: The Drivers Cooperative

#240

Post by sandworm101 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #194
sandworm101 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You can get off an airplane just about anywhere in the world and get an Uber. That’s huge value. I wonder what percentage of people driving on roads are actually the old "jet set", people who travel internationally more than once a year. I'd bet that is actually less than 1% of western populations. I think the real market is locals, people who need rides home when drunk, rather than 1%ers going to and from airport…

The vast majority of people travelling aren’t jet-set or 1% flying in first - they’re just normal hard-working people flying in economy who happen to have a job that requires them to travel and don't have any choice in that matter if they want to put food on their tables and feed buying their children new shoes.

The vast majority of people travelling for work aren’t doing so by plane. From the perspective of overland transport, people going to/from airports are the 1%. The 99% are all the people who's jobs don't involve them flying anywhere.
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