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Unrelated question - is anyone aware of why when you hear about cooperatives, it almost always pertains to food? I love the idea of having cooperatives for all

Unrelated question - is anyone aware of why when you hear about cooperatives, it almost always pertains to food? I love the idea of having cooperatives for all types of business (welding shops, software engineering groups, etc etc). It's such a great business model: promotes passion in employees, business decisions are vetted by multiple people, and many great things for the community. I sometimes dream of starting a non-profit that pays for all the legal documents (the big one being bylaws and how it should operate under member management). So any Jane Doe not gifted in legalese could start a cooperative for her idea.

gkop 11y ago
Where are you located? In the US we also have agricultural supply co-ops, agricultural producers co-ops (dairy, produce, etc), housing co-ops, bicycle co-ops, electricity co-ops, credit unions, shops like REI, the Associated Press, community ISPs, community water associations, and others. Some of these types of co-ops are very popular in their respective sectors: electric coops are often the only choice for electricity in rural areas, many markets have a variety of credit unions to choose from, agricultural supply co-ops are universal in the countryside, etc..
navait 11y ago
If you only read mass media, most co-ops are too obscure for anything other than universal needs like food. My town for example, has a co-op printing shop and a co-op bookstore as well as a co-op grocery. A FOSS project could be seen as a co-op in some ways, too.
kawera 11y ago
There are people trying to spread the idea of cooperatives to "sharing economy" tech platforms.[1][2] [1] http://platformcoop.net/video-stream http://platformcoop.net/video-stream [2] http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-co-opt-the-tech-industry.html http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-... Hopefully some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241
xj9 11y ago
We are still experimenting (though we are profitable), but my startup[1] is working on an open source toolkit for building cooperative businesses. Our eventual goals are to build a diverse network of coops across multiple industries and to lower the barrier of entry for being a business owner/co-owner. I would love to see coops everywhere! Unfortunately they can be a bit complicated to set up and operate. I really hope we can change that. [1]: https://infinite.ai https://infinite.ai
- zschuessler 11y ago
  This is exactly what I had imagined. Very cool, I wish you the best of luck!

gkop 11y ago

Where are you located? In the US we also have agricultural supply co-ops, agricultural producers co-ops (dairy, produce, etc), housing co-ops, bicycle co-ops, electricity co-ops, credit unions, shops like REI, the Associated Press, community ISPs, community water associations, and others. Some of these types of co-ops are very popular in their respective sectors: electric coops are often the only choice for electricity in rural areas, many markets have a variety of credit unions to choose from, agricultural supply co-ops are universal in the countryside, etc..

navait 11y ago

If you only read mass media, most co-ops are too obscure for anything other than universal needs like food. My town for example, has a co-op printing shop and a co-op bookstore as well as a co-op grocery. A FOSS project could be seen as a co-op in some ways, too.

kawera 11y ago

There are people trying to spread the idea of cooperatives to "sharing economy" tech platforms.[1][2] [1] http://platformcoop.net/video-stream http://platformcoop.net/video-stream [2] http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-co-opt-the-tech-industry.html http://americablog.com/2015/11/meet-the-activists-who-would-... Hopefully some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10615241

xj9 11y ago

We are still experimenting (though we are profitable), but my startup[1] is working on an open source toolkit for building cooperative businesses. Our eventual goals are to build a diverse network of coops across multiple industries and to lower the barrier of entry for being a business owner/co-owner. I would love to see coops everywhere! Unfortunately they can be a bit complicated to set up and operate. I really hope we can change that. [1]: https://infinite.ai https://infinite.ai

zschuessler 11y ago
This is exactly what I had imagined. Very cool, I wish you the best of luck!