<story><title>The Drivers Cooperative</title><url>https://www.drivers.coop/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasode</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;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 &lt;i&gt;present a seamless experience to the customers&amp;#x2F;passengers&lt;/i&gt; is a huge factor that works against co-ops.&lt;p&gt;E.g. see the famous Uber comment on the complexity of the app:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=25376346&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=25376346&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Real-life customers don&amp;#x27;t want to enter their credit-card details into City_X_driver_coop and then re-enter their financial details multiple times again into City_Y_driver_coop.  Even if you imagine a hypothetical &lt;i&gt;national&lt;/i&gt; co-op to consolidate multiple cities, customers would still then have inconvenience of Country_X_coop and Country-Y_coop.&lt;p&gt;It takes a lot of &lt;i&gt;capital&lt;/i&gt; to pay programmer salaries for desirable features that customers want and since co-ops are capital-constrained (by definition because they can&amp;#x27;t take millions in investors money), the app will always have less features compared to Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the financial constraint that causes co-ops to more easily organize in &lt;i&gt;lower complexity&lt;/i&gt; businesses such as local grocery co-op or a farming coop.  But a high-tech complexity business that&amp;#x27;s expensive to build is inherently too costly for a pool of drivers&amp;#x27; savings to fund.&lt;p&gt;Whenever you see the phrase &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;worker-owned&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;, mentally substitute &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;capital-constrained&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; -- and it starts to make sense why many businesses domains don&amp;#x27;t have any coops rising up to compete with VC-fueled startups.&lt;p&gt;EDIT to reply:  &lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Driver co-ops or smaller operators simply don’t need to worry about half the nonsense in the comment you linked&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sure, the driver co-ops can &lt;i&gt;choose&lt;/i&gt; to not spend capital on &amp;quot;useless&amp;quot; features but this leaves out the fact that &lt;i&gt;customers can also choose not to use the co-ops because of the lower quality app experience&lt;/i&gt;.  Keep in mind the &lt;i&gt;behavior of customers&lt;/i&gt; who prioritize &lt;i&gt;conveniences&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;E.g. the non-profit RideAustin app fails customers even after Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft left Austin:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;austin-is-fine-without-uber-and-lyft-until-it-isnt&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;austin-is-fine-without-ube...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It takes &lt;i&gt;capital&lt;/i&gt; to build tech solutions that deal with peak load.  And RideAustin later shuts down in 2020:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, one might say RideAustin was hampered by coronavirus lockdowns.  That&amp;#x27;s true, but it also takes &lt;i&gt;capital&lt;/i&gt; to get past an economic downturn of low revenue.  Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft got hurt by COVID as well but they had more capital reserves to deal with it.</text></item><item><author>zxexz</author><text>I hope this takes off. Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. I would gladly (and will try to next time I&amp;#x27;m in NYC) use this service over Uber or Lyft. Power to the drivers!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tzs</author><text>The overwhelming vast majority of reasons I&amp;#x27;ve heard people give for preferring Uber&amp;#x2F;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.&lt;p&gt;Both of those specific problem are solvable for most rides without going anywhere near the level of complexity described in that post you linked to that details why the Uber app is so complicated.&lt;p&gt;Most of the Uber app complexity that post gives is because they want one app that works nearly everywhere and does a lot more than just let you summon a ride from A to B and pay via credit card.&lt;p&gt;For most US cities you could cover the payment needs of most riders with something from Square installed in the car. That gets rid of a huge amount of complexity (or rather, pushes it to someone else).&lt;p&gt;That should be good enough to make them a viable alternative to Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft for probably 95% or more of the rides in a US city.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Drivers Cooperative</title><url>https://www.drivers.coop/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasode</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;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 &lt;i&gt;present a seamless experience to the customers&amp;#x2F;passengers&lt;/i&gt; is a huge factor that works against co-ops.&lt;p&gt;E.g. see the famous Uber comment on the complexity of the app:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=25376346&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=25376346&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Real-life customers don&amp;#x27;t want to enter their credit-card details into City_X_driver_coop and then re-enter their financial details multiple times again into City_Y_driver_coop.  Even if you imagine a hypothetical &lt;i&gt;national&lt;/i&gt; co-op to consolidate multiple cities, customers would still then have inconvenience of Country_X_coop and Country-Y_coop.&lt;p&gt;It takes a lot of &lt;i&gt;capital&lt;/i&gt; to pay programmer salaries for desirable features that customers want and since co-ops are capital-constrained (by definition because they can&amp;#x27;t take millions in investors money), the app will always have less features compared to Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s the financial constraint that causes co-ops to more easily organize in &lt;i&gt;lower complexity&lt;/i&gt; businesses such as local grocery co-op or a farming coop.  But a high-tech complexity business that&amp;#x27;s expensive to build is inherently too costly for a pool of drivers&amp;#x27; savings to fund.&lt;p&gt;Whenever you see the phrase &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;worker-owned&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;, mentally substitute &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;capital-constrained&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; -- and it starts to make sense why many businesses domains don&amp;#x27;t have any coops rising up to compete with VC-fueled startups.&lt;p&gt;EDIT to reply:  &lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Driver co-ops or smaller operators simply don’t need to worry about half the nonsense in the comment you linked&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Sure, the driver co-ops can &lt;i&gt;choose&lt;/i&gt; to not spend capital on &amp;quot;useless&amp;quot; features but this leaves out the fact that &lt;i&gt;customers can also choose not to use the co-ops because of the lower quality app experience&lt;/i&gt;.  Keep in mind the &lt;i&gt;behavior of customers&lt;/i&gt; who prioritize &lt;i&gt;conveniences&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;E.g. the non-profit RideAustin app fails customers even after Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft left Austin:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;austin-is-fine-without-uber-and-lyft-until-it-isnt&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;techcrunch.com&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;austin-is-fine-without-ube...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;It takes &lt;i&gt;capital&lt;/i&gt; to build tech solutions that deal with peak load.  And RideAustin later shuts down in 2020:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.google.com&amp;#x2F;search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, one might say RideAustin was hampered by coronavirus lockdowns.  That&amp;#x27;s true, but it also takes &lt;i&gt;capital&lt;/i&gt; to get past an economic downturn of low revenue.  Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft got hurt by COVID as well but they had more capital reserves to deal with it.</text></item><item><author>zxexz</author><text>I hope this takes off. Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. I would gladly (and will try to next time I&amp;#x27;m in NYC) use this service over Uber or Lyft. Power to the drivers!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ethanbond</author><text>That Uber eng comment reads like list of features and approaches that are necessitated &lt;i&gt;by&lt;/i&gt; an overstaffed engineering department than stuff that necessitates it.&lt;p&gt;Yeah if you have 40-50 (!!) “product teams” fiddling with the Rider app, it’ll get complex and sure it’s impressive it works. But uh... why are there 40-50 product teams working on the Rider app?</text></comment>