@packmusicThe cooperative model is not new. The Rochdale Pioneers established the first modern consumer cooperative in 1844, in response to exploitative pricing by mill owners. The context maps onto the streaming conversation with uncomfortable precision.
The cooperative sector globally represents $2.5 trillion in combined turnover and supports the livelihoods of around one billion people. Mondragon employs over 70,000 people and generates €11 billion in annual revenue alone. The argument that cooperatives are charming but unscalable doesn't survive contact with the evidence.
The reason platform cooperatives are rare in the tech sector isn't that cooperative principles are incompatible with digital platforms. It's that venture capital requires a return structure that is fundamentally incompatible with cooperative ownership - and so the funding infrastructure for technology has actively selected against this model for decades.
The Pack started with a structural question: what would it look like if the distribution infrastructure were owned by the people whose work it distributes? Not managed on their behalf by a company whose interests might or might not align with theirs. Owned by them. Governed by them.
New blog on cooperative history, platform cooperativism, and why your grandmother's ethics still hold up in the digital age.
#CooperativeEconomics #MusicIndustry #IndependentMusic #ThePackMusic #EthicalBusiness #MusicianOwned #FutureOfMusic
The Oldest New Idea in Music — The Pack Music Co-operative
The Pack is something different - it's a patron-powered music streaming service that's actually forging mutually beneficial, direct, and transparent connections between local businesses, local listeners, and local musicians. With the radical notion that maybe, just maybe, we can create a sustainable
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Rolling Stone
