They’re “exploiting” workers by not planning to evenly split profits once, years from now, they’ve hopefully made a return on their enormous capital investment.

I do not know whether the knowledge that they would not have to evenly split profits, but rather could pay a fair wage, was a necessary incentive for them to start their business. But I am curious. This is a copout line of thinking for say the Waltons. But again, it is real for me – I know this very small handful of people, their large investment, their respect for the triple bottom line.

Reflecting now, I’m comfortable judging them based on the obvious good decisions they’ve made. Respect for employees in treatment and pay, respect for customers and the environment - I would not readily accept failings there.

Not joining the 0.015% of small businesses who went the co-op route? Defensible. (Relying on the figure from the earlier commenter, and Statista 2020.)

btw I’ve generally yearned for UBI but now I’ll give more thought to forcing co-op structures and potential unintended consequences :)