Who Gets to Create?

The Edit Button Was Always Meant to Be There

Most people don’t know that the original internet had a big ‘edit’ button on every website.

The web was conceived as a collaborative space — a digital commons where every user could contribute, edit, and share knowledge. Tim Berners-Lee’s original web browser, WorldWideWeb (later renamed Nexus), embodied this vision by integrating browsing and editing capabilities, allowing users to not only consume content but also create and modify it directly within the browser. This feature wasn’t a gimmick — it was the core philosophy of the early web. But that vision was quickly and, somewhat unfortunately, overwritten by ad space and monetization models that favored consumption over contribution.

The contemporary internet landscape starkly contrasts that foundational ethos. Despite mobile devices accounting for approximately 64% of global internet traffic as of November 2024, the tools for content creation remain predominantly desktop-centric. This design bias effectively marginalizes the vast majority of users who access the internet exclusively through mobile devices — particularly within the Pillar communities: People of Color, Indigenous peoples, women and girls, LGBTQ2I+ individuals, neurodiverse thinkers, people with disabilities, migrants, and youth. (See our definition of “Pillar communities” here.)

This disparity isn’t just about device preference — it’s about access and representation. In many regions, especially throughout the Global South, effective desktop computers are rare, and mobile phones serve as the primary — if not only — point of internet access. Yet the near-total lack of robust, mobile-friendly content creation tools means that these users are relegated to passive consumption, unable to fully participate in the digital discourse. It's a digital experience completely divorced from the web's original intent.

And here’s the absurd truth: nearly 100% of all modern website creation tools — from Webflow and WordPress to Squarespace, Notion, and beyond — are still optimized for desktop-only editing. Let that sink in. The global majority — especially people across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and underserved communities in the West — experience the web solely as passive mobile-only consumers. This includes the 2 billion youth under 18, the 4 billion+ people of color, and the majority of women, migrants, queer, disabled, and neurodiverse users globally — the very populations driving global culture, commerce, and communication. Yet these same communities can’t build on the web they use daily. They can scroll it, tap it, like it — but they can’t shape it.

That’s not just a tech oversight.
That’s digital apartheid.

It’s time to build mobile-first, edit-ready, creation-focused internet tools — not trends, not apps, but real infrastructure for global democracy. The future of a truly representative and participatory internet requires creators with the power to build from the palm of their hands, just as originally intended.

Mobile phones did not exist at the creation of the web — only heavy desktop units plugged into walls and offices. But just as mobile devices have radically reshaped how we interact with the world, we now have an extraordinary opportunity to recreate the tools on our devices to reshape how we ALL interact with the internet.

It’s time.
No more digital apartheid.
No more gatekeeping.
Let them edit.