I advocate for platform cooperativism and workers self-organization and this article is still terrible. Every single technical reference is wrong and the level of confidence in the blockchain is way beyond what is reasonable at this time.

At some point I was expecting some comment on Comrade Elon Musk, the Lord and Saviour of the proletariat.

"And contracting costs are likely to fall markedly thanks to the advent of blockchain protocols"

I really don't see any evidence of this being true in general...

Really wish this article wasnt full of crypto psychobabble because the cooperative business structure has real teeth, both as an alternative fundraising/equity structure for tech companies and for regular, everyday businesses across the US. Establishing clear ownership structures among workers in a way that allows them to have a voice in company operations and share in the profits is the most democratic mode of capitalism and clearly fairer than the oligarchic form of capitalism we’re living in now. I wish more startups considered this path.

I am sympathetic somewhat I suppose, but they seriously downplay the issues with blockchains, including the Ethereum "hack" (which IMO was the system working as designed although not intended). The various cryptocoins are not decentralized, in fact, we have had a couple of articles posted here lately about 51% attacks on a number of coins, so how are they the decentralized future as the article puts it?

Are we seeing the outline of a new class struggle? Rentiers owning platforms that allow the gig economy to function being organised against on whatsapp?

Co-operatives have been around for a long time outside of the software world. The low level problems are being worked on right now with DAOs, but it will take a while longer.

If you take the D out of DAO, then the high level problems: fairness and trust, can already be worked upon.

Are there any organizations that have tied software decision making to the existing legal system?