[clarkevans]

Cooperatives can expand by cooperating with other cooperatives -- a bunch of local cooperatives might nest to form a regional one, etc. Those regional ones could form a federation with a single identity for global operations.

So, this problem can be addressed by cooperatives, it's just a different kind of structure that distributes power locally -- with centralized power deriving from the bottom up, by the membership of localized cooperatives. The organizational challenge for expansion is how to avoid administrative capture: how to keep centralized infrastructure controlled by localized entities.

I don't think this "franchise" challenge has been worked out with platform cooperatives. However, if this NY based cooperative becomes profitable, it could expand to other cities not by getting bigger, but by forking off the operational aspects into a cooperative-of-cooperatives, then, a Chicago driver's cooperative could be a member of this shared operational entity.

[dwater]

I've noticed credit unions in the US are like this. They are generally locally operated, but they have formed networks so that you can e.g. go into a branch in Maryland and perform transactions on your account held in Georgia. They have also banded together to develop credit union apps, since banking apps are essentially universal in function. Reaching critical mass for these ride hailing apps would be a challenge, but it is possible.

[novok]

We don't really see coop payment networks in wide use although, and Uber is more like a Visa or Ebay than they are a bank.

[sjsamson]

Many U.S. credit unions are members of CO-OP Financial Services [0], a cooperative of cooperatives, which provides shared ATM and branch services. Effectively making it one of the largest networks in the USA. There are other similar organizations that provide various backend and federation services.

[0]: https://www.co-opfs.org/About-Us

[User23]

The entire US payments system is a co-op payment network[1]. The Federal Reserve is owned by its member banks and they handle clearing for some absurdly large number of transactions. They use a slightly different nomenclature, but pragmatically it's a member owned co-op.

[1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm

[novok]

I don't think a global association of lyft, uber, didi, grab, doordash etc is exactly the kind of 'coop' that these people are going for. Your describing a coop of large organizations. This is a 'by the people for the people' type of organization, which the closest thing I can think for is a credit union.

[Retric]

Fraud from either side of the transaction is the primary issue payment networks deal with and that makes them a poor fit for coops. Ride sharing apps are very different beasts.

[anoncake]

Which suggests non-coop payment networks are more successful in the market. It does not tell us anything about whether they are actually better for anyone.

[Kalium]

One of the key advantages a large corporate model has over a small, local cooperative is the ability to effectively harness resources for shared infrastructure.

In the case of Uber and Lyft, that's all the technological infrastructure that goes into making the platforms work. This isn't a trivial amount of work that can be easily replicated by taxi companies or scrappy driver-owned coops, as attempts to do so have shown. As we're all familiar with, maintaining this infrastructure is also far from free or trivial.

Credit unions are an instructive example. Many offer membership in interoperative networks, but few are able to effectively compete with the customer-friendly offerings of big banks with centralized power structures. The ability to satisfy customers isn't some side-effect, it's a key goal. A localized organization that can't compete is worth nothing except as a cautionary tale.

With that in mind, I would say the organizational challenge of coops is thus: how to keep centralized infrastructure controlled by localized entities while being competitive with non-local entities.

[sangnoir]

The "big 4" accounting firms are structured similarly: a single global identity, but each country's org is independent, with local partners in charge and having partial ownership.