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Re:The Drivers Cooperative by sandworm101 on Friday March 26, 2021 @09:16AM (#26591732)
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.
Re:The Drivers Cooperative by chaos_emergent on Friday March 26, 2021 @10:48AM (#26592803)
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 by kube-system on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:32PM (#26595324)
The 'local interest' is more than just drivers. It's competing groups, regulators, land owners, etc.
Re:The Drivers Cooperative by patentatt on Friday March 26, 2021 @09:46AM (#26592072)
But can’t they just ride the coattails of the big players? Once they’ve lobbied their way in, shouldn’t it be pretty easy for the coop to just say they should be treated the same?

For that matter, I always wonder why Airbnb still exists. Now that they’ve bulldozed all sorts of local regulations with their VC money, why wouldn’t a coop model work better for the actual landlords? Something akin to the MLS for real estate, for local operators of short term rentals.

Re:The Drivers Cooperative by xsmasher on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:07PM (#26595094)
The little guy can ride the coattails as long as the behemoth allows it.

The behemoth can get "safety" regulations passed that only the behemoth can satisfy- basically pull the ladder behind them.

Re:The Drivers Cooperative by zbyte64 on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:13PM (#26594517)
Ostensibly yes because landlords would get a larger share of the surplus, but as long as capital writes regulations, entities that extract more surplus will be better able to change the rules. Just look at how much was spent in California to keep gig workers as contractors.
Re:The Drivers Cooperative by vivekmgeorge on Friday March 26, 2021 @09:41AM (#26592007)
Only for so long. Their stock price will suffer at a certain point. Not to mention the bad PR that come with it. The more of these that we see globally the harder it would be for them to run at a loss. As a CO-OP they can take growth slowly. They don't have the same investor pressure