> Co-op for consulting actually seems like it could work.

I made a comment about exactly this in the thread. This is where a lot of co-op ideas go, but they run into friction when they get to the part about sharing the money around. Consulting is one place where developers can see a direct relationship between their hours worked, hours billed, dollars coming into the business, and dollars going into their paycheck. There are some ideas like putting shared money into a group fund to cover vacations and similar expenses, but generally a consulting group is money-in money-out. Nobody really wants to join a co-op and see the hours they bill go to pay someone who works fewer hours, so the money relationship gets even more tightly coupled than at a traditional salaried company.