A post-mortem of California’s most ambitious #platformcoop, RIP — Loconomics, a startup that offered shared services to freelancers, became a darling of academics and allies interested in platform cooperativism. But while academics secured grants, Loconomics struggled to gain traction. Appearances at conference panels and in magazine features never translated to enough funding or users to scale. So, after six…

Listening to the members who do the work — In Baltimore, a group of returning citizens—formerly incarcerated men and women—faced ridiculously unfair barriers to employment. And so, over the past two years, they formed Core Staffing, an agency helping its 12 members get work. Joseph Cureton, one of Core’s co-founders, is prototyping a platform to help get jobs for…

How anarchist newspapers shaped the Spanish Revolution — For a brief time during the 1930s in Spain, equality was real — from work, to greetings, to clothes. A union of fancy hat-makers got upset because everybody wanted to dress in common, in solidarity. The fascists were also upset, but in a different way. This is the history that…

Reflecting on our organizing — The first conversation I had with Paige and Matt happened before May Day, 2016. We talked about an event focused on transforming startups into co-ops. Matt was in Japan, but Paige joined me and a few others to organize the very first Co-op Barn-Raiser. Back then, I think the TechWorkersCoalition…

The magical technology narrative has had its day — Dear Stewart Brand, I saw Francis Fukuyama respond to his (many) critics in 2007 at Fort Mason, and it helped me appreciate the talks and open debate you host with the Long Now Foundation. …

“Care to buy this lovely bridge?” It’s unknown exactly how many hapless saps bought the Brooklyn Bridge. Every few years, from 1883 to around 1930, New York police would dismantle a makeshift tollbooth and cart away its baffled builder. Most of the victims were recent immigrants. Selling public property has…

A summary of our May Day barn-raiser, with 17 images — Evangeline asked why people get involved in co-ops, and then drop it. “Why do people stop trying?” For half of the 30 people at The Very First Oakland Co-op DiscoTech, it was a tough question — they had little exposure to co-ops in the first place. But everyone winced at…

Every day, Digit texts me “Hi, Danny” and updates my balance. And every few days, it siphons a few dollars from my account and collects it for me. Better savings through technology! Download Digit for free right here 💛💫 You might hesitate, saying, “It’s automatic? No stress or decision fatigue?” …

Let’s work on it, May 1st in Oakland. Read on and sign up! Five years ago, Reggie Watts made a crowd in Maine laugh/cry about design fetishism. Now, firms like IDEO and critics like Laurenellen McCann!! have books and taglines that all say, in various ways, “Design with, not for.” …