By Staff
A growing movement of worker owned businesses from Colorado ride share drivers to Nebraska cattle ranchers to New York City childcare workers is proving that the investor owned corporation isn't the only way to run an economy. It's just the one that's been subsidized into dominance.
Ahmed used to make a decent living driving for Uber. Then the algorithm tightened. The fares dropped. The take-home pay cratered. "You figure out these things is a trap," he said. "I always talk to myself. I said, what's the alternative? What's the solution for this?"
Last year, Ahmed and a group of other drivers answered their own question. They founded Drivers Coop Colorado, a ride share company owned entirely by its drivers. No Wall Street investors. No venture capital. No distant shareholders demanding 20% returns. Just drivers, one vote each, setting their own pay and governing their own business.
Since launching in 2024, the Coop has signed up more than 5,400 drivers, handled roughly 2,000 rides per month, and racked up over 20,000 app downloads across Colorado's Front Range. Drivers take home 80% of every fare. The same ride that pays $17 on Uber pays $42 on the Coop. For passengers, prices are typically the same or lower without surge pricing, ever.
"We are cheaper and our drivers make 50% to 100% more on some rides," said one Coop driver. "That's why you drive Coop."
The Colorado experiment is not an isolated curiosity. It is one front in a widening counteroffensive against a corporate model that has spent four decades consolidating power, extracting wealth, and routing nearly all economic gains to the top.
What Is a Co-op, Actually?
https://uspresscorps370.substack.com/p/the-co-op-counteroffensive
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