Internet Browser Gives Power to the People December 13, 2024 [Video]

A local entrepreneur wants to put the power of the browser in the hands of its user. You’re watching “The Local News Network,” brought to you by The Payroll Department and Sky Ute Casino. I’m Connor Shreve. Matt Martensen aims to launch a web browser that operates as a cooperative owned by its consumers. It’s called User Cooperative.

Basically with REI, with your local grocery co-op, with a handful of other co-ops out there, that they are just an alternative structure for a corporate entity, which is by definition, user-owned, customer-owned. And so kind of a shorthand way of looking at what we’re doing is that we are mashing up REI’s customer ownership with a web browser business like Google Chrome to create User Cooperative.

The notion of a cooperative web browser might be a novel concept, but Martensen thinks it’s been a long time coming.

The core of this …