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Because by and large they tend to be extremely poorly managed. Research has show time and time again that large multinationals have much more effective manageme

Because by and large they tend to be extremely poorly managed. Research has show time and time again that large multinationals have much more effective management practices. In almost any competitive market, multinationals will eventually dominate the industry because of their higher efficiencies.

codingdave 5y ago
> have much more effective management practices OK, but what are the criteria for that? If the measurement is "most money, fastest, for the owners", than we aren't even talking about the same things. I live in the country where my utilities are all provided by small local co-ops. There are co-op grocery stores, too. As a customer, they all work quite well. They wouldn't impress an investor, but that isn't the point - they get the job done to support our community. Getting the job done is my measuring stick.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  The examples you gave are in sectors where technological change is slow. A grocery store of 2021 isn't that different from a grocery store of 2001. Co-ops will find it much harder to compete in sectors where a new model is expected every few months, such as smartphones.
  - hnbad 5y ago
    The limiting attribute of the smartphone market isn't the release cycle. Even large international corporations find it hard to compete in the smartphone market. The biggest problem is that a sustainable smartphone product wouldn't sell very well and the market is heavily based on selling incremental changes and flashy non-features as groundbreaking innovations. I'd say one of the biggest differences between sectors where coops do well and where they don't is that the latter tend to be sectors where the value proposition of the product is almost entirely driven by marketing and the products are only profitable because they're disposable. Apple doesn't make a profit from selling you an iPhone every five years. Apple makes a profit from selling (lowercase-i) influencers an iPhone at least once a year to convince everyone else they should really cycle out their current model long before it's actually obsolete. Another important factor of course is that coops tend to focus on local communities and smartphones are almost entirely manufactured overseas at this point (speaking from an American or European POV). It's hardly a coop if 99% of the workers involved are working for non-coop subcontractors in a different country.

codingdave 5y ago

> have much more effective management practices OK, but what are the criteria for that? If the measurement is "most money, fastest, for the owners", than we aren't even talking about the same things. I live in the country where my utilities are all provided by small local co-ops. There are co-op grocery stores, too. As a customer, they all work quite well. They wouldn't impress an investor, but that isn't the point - they get the job done to support our community. Getting the job done is my measuring stick.

inglor_cz 5y ago
The examples you gave are in sectors where technological change is slow. A grocery store of 2021 isn't that different from a grocery store of 2001. Co-ops will find it much harder to compete in sectors where a new model is expected every few months, such as smartphones.
- hnbad 5y ago
  The limiting attribute of the smartphone market isn't the release cycle. Even large international corporations find it hard to compete in the smartphone market. The biggest problem is that a sustainable smartphone product wouldn't sell very well and the market is heavily based on selling incremental changes and flashy non-features as groundbreaking innovations. I'd say one of the biggest differences between sectors where coops do well and where they don't is that the latter tend to be sectors where the value proposition of the product is almost entirely driven by marketing and the products are only profitable because they're disposable. Apple doesn't make a profit from selling you an iPhone every five years. Apple makes a profit from selling (lowercase-i) influencers an iPhone at least once a year to convince everyone else they should really cycle out their current model long before it's actually obsolete. Another important factor of course is that coops tend to focus on local communities and smartphones are almost entirely manufactured overseas at this point (speaking from an American or European POV). It's hardly a coop if 99% of the workers involved are working for non-coop subcontractors in a different country.