Discussion summary
A project has compiled a searchable directory of over 22,000 products from worker-owned co-ops by scraping around 60 stores. The initiative aims to facilitate ethical purchasing, though discussions highlight challenges like verification and user experience.
What the discussion says
- Supporters praise the project for making worker co-op products accessible.
- Some question the ethics and verification of worker-owned status.
- Concerns about technical issues like mobile usability are raised.
“Made them searchable from ~60 co-op stores.”
“Very cool! I've submitted a co-op.”
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- Hacker News
- Stoked to see this site! I agree with others that a map-based search would be neat, to find local coops.
One link correction: 1620 worker is https://www.1620usa.com/ not 1620workwear.com
by kaikai - Really nice project!
It will be intresing an automation that check online for word like “worker cooperative”, “worker-owned” to find new candidate that fit.
Ofc the hard part is confirming if it's genuinely worker-owned, so keeping that step human makes sense. But the discovery/shortlisting could be largely automated crawl the web, score candidates by how many co-op signals they hit, and present the top ones for you to vet.
Would be happy to help prototype something like this if you're interested (i really like your idea).
- How are these companies legally setup in the US? Is there a concept of a co-op or do you setup an LLC?
In Switzerland we have the concept of a "Genossenschaft"[1] which is a legal form for a company entered in the official company register like every other company for co-ops. You need to be at least 7 people to start one.
The largest two food super markets are both co-ops (Migros and Coop) and also the largest car sharing company Mobility is a co-op.
[1] https://www.kmu.admin.ch/kmu/en/home/concrete-know-how/setti...
by sschueller - Incredible and worthwhile effort, thanks for sharing.
Seems some of the results are outdated. For example Ubuntu Coffee Collective in Emeryville is permanently closed.
by hack1312 - Does WinCo Foods count? https://www.wincofoods.com/employee-ownedby williadc
- Terrific idea. I agree with daheza. Location search would be an awesome feature. The site is blazing fast. Great work. Keep it up.by benonsocial
- Nice site! Maybe add link correction? Sometimes I found myself going to sites and though target landing page was wrong or out-of-date, surfing the site a bit, found similar or same product still offered. Would have to have some way of trusting / verifying the corrections but some people would find it satisfying to offer fix the bad links I bet.
- yeah still lots of cleaning up. it's a little like wack-a-mole and i'm hoping users will find stuff and submit it.by IESAI_ski
- I wonder of there is a version of this but for jobs?by LPisGood
- And related: what are the challenges (and opportunities) of forming a co-op venture or business. Tech-related or otherwise.
I'm assuming access to capital is a big element.
by dredmorbius - heh i made something that you might the call the opposite of that: https://yourfairshare.info/
Enter your US employer's name or stock ticker symbol (e.g. Amazon, Apple, JP Morgan Chase) and your compensation to see how your pay compares to company-wide financials. Basically, you can see how much more they could have paid you. Also shows stock buybacks and dividends, so u can see how much more they could have paid you instead of the stock market.
by IESAI_ski - +100... I'd love to find a spot at a tech co-op but they seem as common as a hen's tooth.by eikenberry
- Not exactly what you asked for, but here is a related Wiki entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_compani...
by consumer451 - I read this post while sitting at Broken Clock Brewing here in Minneapolis, one of the 13 listed and my favorite brewery. There are actually 2 in my city. I actually picked up an ownership card and anyone can buy in for $200, but dividends don't start to pay out until some indefinite point where the voting owners decide the business can sustain it.by eleventen
- Very nice and appreciate the effort you put into making this.
Some Improvements that could help: the location search could be an actual map with pins which would be easier to use some kind of tags for the different appareal items would help clarify which one, currently i have to click and search each vendor for things im looking for. Specifically autistic friendly / sensory clothing items.
by daheza - good idea. i can do this :)by IESAI_ski
- Seconding location based lookups. I might not be looking for something specific, but if I know of businesses nearby worth patronizing, when I need that good/service, I'll visit them then.by johnjreiser
- Maybe a little leaflet.js w/ open street maps would fit the spirit of the siteby MintTea
- Curious that you include REI. It's a retail coop model, not a worker-owned coop.
Apropos: the way they ended the REI Adventures program is behavior consistent with a normal big-box chain. That is, announce the end simultaneously to their customers and REI's partner adventure companies, provide refunds to customers, but don't forward the relevant same customer info to the partners for rebooking because that's REI's proprietary data.
If that's also behavior consistent with a worker-owned coop, I have to ask: what is the social benefit of worker-owned over a normal corporate structure? And if it's not, why point the user to REI for a pair of hiking shorts?
by jancsika - > what is the social benefit of worker-owned
No capital-risking, and then rent-seeking, middleman, if I’m following.
by DANmode - Appreciate the feedback and the info. I included REI in the directory (labeled as customer co-op not a worker co-op) but not in the search results but now I realize that's lame. I'm just gonna take them off entirely.by IESAI_ski
- REI changed about 25 years ago and it took a while for people to notice/the changes to filter through enough. Was talking recently about similar changes with MEC in Canada with a family friend who joined MEC as member 200-250. He had a chance to be in the first ~25 members but wasn't sure they'd still exist in a year.
I think there still is value in a retail coop model but I think REI strayed from the area where it could work well. They may not have been able to run forever without changing but the way it has changed is a bit sad to see. I suspect there has to be a strong mission statement and way to hold to it for a retail coop to thrive long term. Or maybe just to keep the size small enough to avoid some of the harder questions.
by dendrite9 - Neat project and I love the motivations behind it.
A few friendly recommendations:
• The images on the results pages are in desperate need of optimization. Plenty of 500KB+ thumbnails and even a couple 2MB+ thumbnails I saw in there. Could easily be optimized 90%+ with no loss of quality
• The instant live search can be a little distracting, particularly paired with the heavy loading of the thumbnails
• I know you don't want to create your own full ecomm site, but even just a hover PDP without having to click off could be nice, if you could pull in the key product details. I know the goal is to support the destination sites but it was a lot of back and forth to me
• Any ability to validate that a product is available vs sold out (and note that on the results pages) would be appreciated. Probably 75% of the items I checked on ttgaming.quest were sold out. A banner across items not in stock would be helpful. Or a filter on the search results page.
Keep up the good work!
by robot_jesus - Would also like geographical filtering for both local delivery (shipping emissions) and "can I go there"by goodmythical