A Fairer Internet

The network that powers our new digital society should be in the hands of the many, not the few.

Imagine this pandemic but without the internet. With no web of connected devices feeding an infrastructure that brings us food and shopping; that links us to distant friends and family; that allows large swathes of society to work with limited interruption.

Feels vital, doesn’t it? A dependency brought into sharp focus not a moment too soon — advancing technology will soon plug millions more machines into the cloud, drawing and sending data for everything from automated, AI-driven domestic deliveries to consultations with your doctor.

Connectivity has crossed the threshold from luxury to necessity. It’s now analogous to water supply or power for heat and light, which makes it all the more troubling that the infrastructure on which this new matrix for society is built is owned by so few.

Amazon Web Services currently hosts more than 9 million websites. Estimates have its market share at over 30% for cloud services. Google Cloud is around 13%, Microsoft Azure 7%. Surveys suggest more than 60% of tech professionals are currently running a cloud app with AWS.

Edge believes there is a different way. Our network is a not for profit organisation. Instead of investing in factories filled with servers effectively hoarding services key to our new digital society, we provide a lightweight infrastructure that allows us all to build the cloud around us — we each own a stake in ‘our’ network and each earn revenue from it.

Anyone with a laptop, mobile phone, games console or desktop PC (for example) can offer spare capacity to Edge, providing secure and performant cloud services to all. Instead of lining pockets of the world’s richest individuals, Edge rewards everyone with revenue from the services we share.

Join us by registering today.

Written by Paul Regan. Paul is a Strategic Advisor to Edge.