I think the biggest issue in software development is the winner-takes-all position with many internet businesses. For the business to survive, you have to take the whole market, which means you need to have lots of capital to expand quickly, which means you need venture capital. It’s the same problem that self-funded startups have. People generally agree that self-funded startups are better to work at, but they can’t grow quite as fast as VC-funded startups and lose the race. But that doesn’t apply outside of the software sphere (which is why VC primarily focuses on software startups).
Beyond that, they’re just not that well known as an option in the US, and all of the narrative is about venture capital based startups, so founders haven’t considered co-ops as an option. Despite that I am aware of a few software co-ops (primarily consultancies, since they don’t have the large capital needs).
I think the biggest issue in software development is the winner-takes-all position with many internet businesses. For the business to survive, you have to take the whole market, which means you need to have lots of capital to expand quickly, which means you need venture capital. It’s the same problem that self-funded startups have. People generally agree that self-funded startups are better to work at, but they can’t grow quite as fast as VC-funded startups and lose the race. But that doesn’t apply outside of the software sphere (which is why VC primarily focuses on software startups).
Beyond that, they’re just not that well known as an option in the US, and all of the narrative is about venture capital based startups, so founders haven’t considered co-ops as an option. Despite that I am aware of a few software co-ops (primarily consultancies, since they don’t have the large capital needs).