7 ms·

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

by zxexz 6y ago

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'm in NYC) use this service over Uber or Lyft. Power to the drivers!

jasode 6y ago
>Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. It'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 present a seamless experience to the customers/passengers is a huge factor that works against co-ops. E.g. see the famous Uber comment on the complexity of the app: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 Real-life customers don'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 national co-op to consolidate multiple cities, customers would still then have inconvenience of Country_X_coop and Country-Y_coop. It takes a lot of capital to pay programmer salaries for desirable features that customers want and since co-ops are capital-constrained (by definition because they can't take millions in investors money), the app will always have less features compared to Uber/Lyft. That's the financial constraint that causes co-ops to more easily organize in lower complexity businesses such as local grocery co-op or a farming coop. But a high-tech complexity business that's expensive to build is inherently too costly for a pool of drivers' savings to fund. Whenever you see the phrase "worker-owned", mentally substitute "capital-constrained" -- and it starts to make sense why many businesses domains don't have any coops rising up to compete with VC-fueled startups. EDIT to reply: >Driver co-ops or smaller operators simply don’t need to worry about half the nonsense in the comment you linked Sure, the driver co-ops can choose to not spend capital on "useless" features but this leaves out the fact that customers can also choose not to use the co-ops because of the lower quality app experience. Keep in mind the behavior of customers who prioritize conveniences. E.g. the non-profit RideAustin app fails customers even after Uber/Lyft left Austin: https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-uber-and-lyft-until-it-isnt/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-ube... It takes capital to build tech solutions that deal with peak load. And RideAustin later shuts down in 2020: https://www.google.com/search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down https://www.google.com/search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down Well, one might say RideAustin was hampered by coronavirus lockdowns. That's true, but it also takes capital to get past an economic downturn of low revenue. Uber/Lyft got hurt by COVID as well but they had more capital reserves to deal with it.
- 88 6y ago
  Let’s not pretend back-end taxi/private hire vehicle dispatch is either a complex problem, or one that Uber solved themselves. They added a glossy mobile app to the equation. Many others have since done the same. Driver co-ops or smaller operators simply don’t need to worry about half the nonsense in the comment you linked (support for dozens of languages and payment methods, integration with other first or third party services, etc.)
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    The commenter is not saying literal taxi dispatch is complicated. But that's an extremely reductive view of what Uber is. Their actual point is 1) that it's a complex problem to make it a programmatic market which functions nationally (even internationally) and 2) that such a product will naturally have a feature and convenience advantage over regional-specific, capital-constrained alternatives.
- tnzm 6y ago
  >present a seamless experience to the customers/passengers There does exist a segment of users who are willing to navigate a less-than-seamless experience if that lets them avoid dealing with a less-than-ethical business. (And probably there's at least some PR effort involved in making their voices not count.) Besides, the Uber/Lyft experience is far from "seamless", and developing a ride-sharing app that does _not_ aim to work on a global scale has different challenges from those outlined in that post. >But a high-tech complexity business that's expensive to build is inherently too costly for a pool of drivers' savings to fund. >Whenever you see "worker-owned", mentally substitute "capital-constrained" -- and it starts to make sense why many businesses domains don't have any coops rising up to compete with VC-fueled startups. My favorite conspiracy theory is that VC is poured into software not to produce meaningful innovation, but chiefly to hypercomplicate the field in a sort of Cambrian explosion, so that the "capital-constrained" can't get anything done with the baroque frameworks and out-of-touch developers that the ecosystem produces. Thankfully, people who understand how a computer works (and what it's good for) do exist outside of SV. Sometimes (shhh!) they're even motivated by other things besides short-term capital accumulation! And better ethics can mean better efficiency - fewer politically driven kludges in software, less staff turnover, even the fact that people can and do accept to get paid a more average salary in exchange for working at a place that isn't screwing people over at industrial fucking scale. That's how a cooperative can compete with a megacorpo, although realistically a more reasonable first goal would be to coexist in the same markets, or operate in markets that have demand but are deemed insufficiently profitable for the corp.

by zxexz 6y ago

jasode 6y ago

>Ride-hailing apps always seemed like a model that was extremely conducive to a cooperative, worker-owned model. It'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 present a seamless experience to the customers/passengers is a huge factor that works against co-ops. E.g. see the famous Uber comment on the complexity of the app: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25376346 Real-life customers don'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 national co-op to consolidate multiple cities, customers would still then have inconvenience of Country_X_coop and Country-Y_coop. It takes a lot of capital to pay programmer salaries for desirable features that customers want and since co-ops are capital-constrained (by definition because they can't take millions in investors money), the app will always have less features compared to Uber/Lyft. That's the financial constraint that causes co-ops to more easily organize in lower complexity businesses such as local grocery co-op or a farming coop. But a high-tech complexity business that's expensive to build is inherently too costly for a pool of drivers' savings to fund. Whenever you see the phrase "worker-owned", mentally substitute "capital-constrained" -- and it starts to make sense why many businesses domains don't have any coops rising up to compete with VC-fueled startups. EDIT to reply: >Driver co-ops or smaller operators simply don’t need to worry about half the nonsense in the comment you linked Sure, the driver co-ops can choose to not spend capital on "useless" features but this leaves out the fact that customers can also choose not to use the co-ops because of the lower quality app experience. Keep in mind the behavior of customers who prioritize conveniences. E.g. the non-profit RideAustin app fails customers even after Uber/Lyft left Austin: https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-uber-and-lyft-until-it-isnt/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/12/austin-is-fine-without-ube... It takes capital to build tech solutions that deal with peak load. And RideAustin later shuts down in 2020: https://www.google.com/search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down https://www.google.com/search?q=rideaustin+shuts+down Well, one might say RideAustin was hampered by coronavirus lockdowns. That's true, but it also takes capital to get past an economic downturn of low revenue. Uber/Lyft got hurt by COVID as well but they had more capital reserves to deal with it.

88 6y ago
Let’s not pretend back-end taxi/private hire vehicle dispatch is either a complex problem, or one that Uber solved themselves. They added a glossy mobile app to the equation. Many others have since done the same. Driver co-ops or smaller operators simply don’t need to worry about half the nonsense in the comment you linked (support for dozens of languages and payment methods, integration with other first or third party services, etc.)
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  The commenter is not saying literal taxi dispatch is complicated. But that's an extremely reductive view of what Uber is. Their actual point is 1) that it's a complex problem to make it a programmatic market which functions nationally (even internationally) and 2) that such a product will naturally have a feature and convenience advantage over regional-specific, capital-constrained alternatives.
tnzm 6y ago
>present a seamless experience to the customers/passengers There does exist a segment of users who are willing to navigate a less-than-seamless experience if that lets them avoid dealing with a less-than-ethical business. (And probably there's at least some PR effort involved in making their voices not count.) Besides, the Uber/Lyft experience is far from "seamless", and developing a ride-sharing app that does _not_ aim to work on a global scale has different challenges from those outlined in that post. >But a high-tech complexity business that's expensive to build is inherently too costly for a pool of drivers' savings to fund. >Whenever you see "worker-owned", mentally substitute "capital-constrained" -- and it starts to make sense why many businesses domains don't have any coops rising up to compete with VC-fueled startups. My favorite conspiracy theory is that VC is poured into software not to produce meaningful innovation, but chiefly to hypercomplicate the field in a sort of Cambrian explosion, so that the "capital-constrained" can't get anything done with the baroque frameworks and out-of-touch developers that the ecosystem produces. Thankfully, people who understand how a computer works (and what it's good for) do exist outside of SV. Sometimes (shhh!) they're even motivated by other things besides short-term capital accumulation! And better ethics can mean better efficiency - fewer politically driven kludges in software, less staff turnover, even the fact that people can and do accept to get paid a more average salary in exchange for working at a place that isn't screwing people over at industrial fucking scale. That's how a cooperative can compete with a megacorpo, although realistically a more reasonable first goal would be to coexist in the same markets, or operate in markets that have demand but are deemed insufficiently profitable for the corp.