In the software world, we solved economies of scale without centralization with open source. Everyone contributes a little bit to Linux, which soundly beat all

In the software world, we solved economies of scale without centralization with open source. Everyone contributes a little bit to Linux, which soundly beat all the commercial Unixes without putting power in the hands of a few. It's an interesting question whether this can be generalized, especially to industries with physical products. Can you have a group of several independent farmers work together on farming technology and avoid having to join a large corporate farming company? Can you have a collaboration between independent coffee shops so they get all the benefits of being Starbucks franchisees while remaining independent?