Before I managed to get WiFi working (I had lots of trial and error with ndiswrapper), my very first triumph was getting a USB-powered "winmodem" to work with Damn Small Linux (which I got for free in a magazine). One of the websites I used seems to still be online: http://www.linmodems.org

While I am so thankful that compatibility and ease of use has dramatically improved since those heady days, I honestly think I wouldn't have gotten the career I have without that struggle and the curiosity FOSS provided that drove me to push through and learn something.

> So the participants negotiate arrangements that mutually incentivize each other to pay their parts satisfactorily.

I don't think this is accurate. Stakeholders in a founding business certainly do this in order to set the pace of initial growth and retain key staff. Organisations which are in the last stages of an exit do not act in the interests of the workers or the customer - they act in the interest of the party that is set to buy them and the major stakeholders set to profit the most. And whether it's by destroying terms and conditions, laying off staff, or by slashing pensions, all of this serves the owners and major stakeholders at the expense of everyone else. Having a better distribution of ownership disincentivises these malicious activities.

Studies show that cooperatives produce more stable, sustainable businesses which are not designed for short-term speculation.

• Worker co-operatives are larger than conventional businesses and not necessarily less capital intensive

• Worker co-operatives survive at least as long as other businesses and have more stable employment

• Worker cooperatives are more productive than conventional businesses, with staff working “better and smarter” and production organised more efficiently

• Worker co-operatives retain a larger share of their profits than other business models

• Executive and non-executive pay differentials are much narrower in worker co-operatives than other firms

Source: https://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/2020-10/worker_co-op...

I think workers should have a seat on every board; workers should have a right to first refusal - with a preferential price - on companies that are going through an exit; and that the state should provide an investment fund to allow for this to happen on the condition that the business be ran as a worker co-op.

I think policy such as this would bring stability, long-term thinking, and more genuine customer empathy that isn't solely profit-driven, while reducing costs and driving up baseline wages.

Democracy is important in our politics, but we spend more time at work than anything else. Therefore democracy should be part of our workplaces too.

It's worth adding that none of this prohibits businesses from starting up and reaching the point where they exit with a handsome reward.

The problem is and always was the so-called "rights holders", who are just another form of landlord, looking to milk their licenses for as much as we can bare. Their power needs to be diminished. Whoever cracks that nut will revolutionise the media industry in my opinion.

Well done to the Hashicorp team for getting to where they are now - by building something new and useful, and by fundamentally not being greedy.

While the rest of the world looks on in envy, wondering why it is seemingly so impossible to replicate elsewhere.

But what I think people in the US (and many in the UK) don't grasp, is that someone (plucking an example out of the air) who is a manager of a retail shop in a small town in Sweden could afford a car like a Tesla. Partly because of the strong democratic socialist economic historical context underpinning decades of economic and workplace policy, and partly because of the decades-long subsidy and support of EV sales and supporting infrastructure in these countries making them cheaper and more practical than in many other countries.

This couldn't be further from the truth in the USA, because work life there has been going in the opposite direction effectively since the cold war.