Just started thinking about cooperatives I'd like to start or have already tried to start IRL and it made me very sad. I've tried…
Bike Shop
DIY Garage
Coffee Shop
Wireless ISP
Hackerspace
Truck share
Bike share
Outdoor gear share
Land share
Community garden
With 0 success. I think the problem with community run organizations is that you have to already have a community, or have some way of reaching a large audience in your local area. How do you actually find people?
It probably doesn't help that I live in a very suburban area and the only way any of my neighbors communicate is with Facebook and the very idea of signing up for any social media again fills me with anxiety.
On the plus side, various platform/online-only co-ops I've tried to start are chugging along at the impossibly slow pace of most co-ops I've ever been a member of, so maybe one day they'll actually be functional. Just to continue the list, those are:
Instant Messaging
Code hosting
Tech freelancing / consulting
Various cooperative software projects
@sam There is a reason new stuff often starts in cities. Density really helps finding a critical mass of an initially obscure idea.
Maybe that can change now with social media and the like. But if the coop idea is for a physical location, it will probably require first building a large local/regional network. Or find a digital coop idea.
