I’ve known a few in the U.S., and even worked at one. Maybe people won’t become billionaires doing this, but why wait for a complete overhaul of society to implement more of what are good ideas.
I’d also like to see more childcare co-ops, or community shared pre-k schools. Wheres the movement to build communities and pool resources around these business models in the US? In short, co-ops are the closest socialist/communist business model that’s actually implemented in the U.S., so why are more leftists not doing this?
American banks offering credit card have the highest profit margin of ANY US industry. In most other countries cash is still king. Hence credit unions in those countries need to charge fees and offer worse services. That is true for other banks as well.
If EU “credit unions”:
…then it seems like that’s the problem
Credit unions are a type of cooperative bank. The key is that anybody who opens a bank account becomes a member automatically. That is not the case for other types of cooperative banks.
What you’re describing is not a cooperative.
The definition of a cooperative is where they’re Democratic and decisions are made collectively by all members.
It sounds to me like what you’re describing is a for profit company
Customer and member are not the same thing. A member owns a share of the business and has a vote, with cooperatives having one vote per member. That makes it different to company stock. For consumer cooperative like credit unions, most customers will own a share in the company, but it is not a requirement. For example when you withdraw money from a credit unions ATM, you are a customer of the credit union, but are not necessarily a member. There also are workers cooperatives, where the workers of the company are the members.
Also cooperatives are meant to benefit their members, which makes them different from charities.