Work streams

Every platform built on Grassroots rests on a common foundation: the infrastructure that turns an ordinary smartphone into part of a working network, with no central server anywhere. This is the hardest part of the project to build, and the part everything else depends on. It answers a deceptively simple question — if there is no company in the middle, how do people’s phones find each other, talk to each other, and trust each other?

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A platform owned by its members still has to be run. Rates have to be set, money has to be allocated, rules have to be agreed and occasionally changed, and someone has to represent the group when decisions are delegated. On a conventional platform a company does all of this. On Grassroots, the members do it themselves — and this work stream builds the system that lets them, fairly and at any scale.

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This work stream shapes the technology into things people actually use: working cooperative apps — a ride-hailing service, a delivery platform, a marketplace for freelance or care work — each owned and run by its members, and each designed to hold its own against the corporate platform it competes with. The economics, the design, and the software all come together here.

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