Nathan Schneider, assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, will work to make the online economy more democratic and equitable by promoting specific entrepreneurial and policy strategies to increase user co-ownership of online platforms. Schneider believes that prevailing online platforms contribute to economic inequality, by consolidating wealth and ownership from less concentrated industries into highly centralized and automated monopolies. His project will focus on three strands of democratizing platform ownership—“startup exits,” utility co-ownership, and codetermination—and will promote using innovative legal and technological methods to craft legislation.
