The example way above was NVIDIA. Suppose the person who passed away was one of the founding researchers at the NVIDIA worker coop. They developed most of the key technologies that go into a graphics card, but they died during the later stages of production ramp up, before the first GPUs are able to hit the market.
The issue is that the deceased researcher's contribution to the project may be so central and foundational that they may be entitled to a large plurality (or even majority) stake, but forcing the other worker-owners to buy out that stake to pay the estate would bankrupt the coop at this critical pre-production stage. Since only active workers are allowed to maintain ownership, allowing the estate to retain those shares and later receive dividends on future profits is off the table. This issue seems to tie everyone's hands and sound the death knell for the coop.
The novelist case was meant to show an extreme non-coop situation. I don't see any compelling reason for writers of books to join coops, since the writing of the book is the only hard part these days (and countless ways to self-publish exist).
The issue is that the deceased researcher's contribution to the project may be so central and foundational that they may be entitled to a large plurality (or even majority) stake, but forcing the other worker-owners to buy out that stake to pay the estate would bankrupt the coop at this critical pre-production stage. Since only active workers are allowed to maintain ownership, allowing the estate to retain those shares and later receive dividends on future profits is off the table. This issue seems to tie everyone's hands and sound the death knell for the coop.
The novelist case was meant to show an extreme non-coop situation. I don't see any compelling reason for writers of books to join coops, since the writing of the book is the only hard part these days (and countless ways to self-publish exist).