Wikipedia is very well funded, but not, as this video might make you believe, by large donations from the likes of Google and Amazon. While these donate the occasional million, most of the Wikimedia Foundation's $160 million revenue comes from small donations.
Moreover, it's not a question of "keeping Wikipedia running" – the Wikimedia Foundation is taking more than enough money for that. Revenue has increased every year of the Wikimedia Foundation's existence, and it had (including endowment growth) a total surplus of nearly $90 million in its 2020/21 financial year, as well as hundreds of millions in reserves:
In fact, the success of Wikipedia fundraising is such that by now, many Wikipedia volunteers feel that fundraising emails asking people to donate money "to keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free", or "independent", are grossly misleading and unethical:
Anyone who's ever read some of the more spicy talk pages knows that Wikipedia is a gigantic fractal turf war masquerading as a snapshot of current day popular thought masquerading as an encyclopedia. I use it on occasion but I think it may be better to preference other sources most of the time, out of prudence.
3 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 19.8 ms ] threadhttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim...
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2020-21_Report
Moreover, it's not a question of "keeping Wikipedia running" – the Wikimedia Foundation is taking more than enough money for that. Revenue has increased every year of the Wikimedia Foundation's existence, and it had (including endowment growth) a total surplus of nearly $90 million in its 2020/21 financial year, as well as hundreds of millions in reserves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation#Financial...
In fact, the success of Wikipedia fundraising is such that by now, many Wikipedia volunteers feel that fundraising emails asking people to donate money "to keep Wikipedia online", "ad-free", or "independent", are grossly misleading and unethical:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28prop...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713978
(P.S. This is the second item today that is a straight copy of an earlier submission – see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32793755 – What is going on?)