The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the non-profit that owns Wikipedia and other volunteer-written websites, is about to reach its 10-year goal of creating a $100 million endowment five years earlier than it planned. Its total funds, which have risen
by about $200 million over the past five years, now stand at around
$300 million. Its revenue has risen every year. In just the first nine
months of its current financial year, it has raked in $142 million in
donations according to an internaldocument—and already obliterated its previous annual record.
This news may surprise donors and users around the world who have seen
Wikipedia fundraising banners displayed at various times during the past
year—including, for the first time, in India. Presently shown to
readers in pandemic-ridden Latin America, these banners have created a
widespread impression that the WMF must be struggling to keep Wikipedia
up-and-running, with tearful-sounding messages like: “This Thursday
Wikipedia really needs you. This is the 10th appeal we’ve shown you. 98%
of our readers don’t give; they look the other way … We ask you,
humbly, don’t scroll away.”
But keeping Wikipedia online is a task that the WMF could comfortably manage on $10 million a year, according to a casual 2013 estimate
by Erik Möller, its VP of engineering and product development at the
time. So what does the WMF do with all the money? It has used the funds
to hire hundreds of additional staff and put money aside for a rainy
day. It has ambitious plans
to “become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free
knowledge.” And it is prepared to tell Wikipedia readers it really needs
their money when it is richer than ever.
[…]
Moreover, the WMF is launching
a for-profit company named Wikimedia, LLC. This will sell API services
to big tech companies, making it easier for them to process Wikimedia
content, which powers voice assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s
Alexa as well as Google’s infoboxes. These smart internet of things
devices all draw on content from Wikipedia to create their aura of
omniscience. The Wikimedia, LLC project fills many of Wikipedia’s volunteer writers with unease. They see profits as a potentially corrupting influence. And there’s a perceived inequality
in WMF staff being paid, while volunteers work for free. Wikipedia has
been built with around 3 billion individual “edits.” The average edit
currently brings the WMF around 4.3 cents in annual revenue, and now far
greater profits to big tech. Wikipedians who have made hundreds of
thousands of edits may well feel someone else is enjoying the fruit of
their labor.
(24 May 2021)
A third of all wikipedia articles are edited by a US Border agent by the name of “Steven Pruitt”. There’s a reason teachers tell you it isn’t a reliable source.
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