That may well be what tends to happen in the large-scale economy, but in my personal experience, co-ops crowd other businesses out over time because they are fa

That may well be what tends to happen in the large-scale economy, but in my personal experience, co-ops crowd other businesses out over time because they are far less likely to piss me off and alienate me. At this point "co-op" has become a pretty strong quality signal: it's not going to be flashy, and it might be a little inefficient, but it will always be decent.