Wikipedia will really be fine. It is all the other expenses that raise eyebrows in a major way. This, of course, includes the pay of the executives and high-ranking officials that earn anywhere between $150k to $500k a year, and their salaries keep growing exponentially. At the same time, they spend donated money hiring union-busting firms - presumably, to crush on the latest unionization attempts and keep growing their pay.
The concern isn’t that Wikipedia sticks around. It would be the financialization of Wikipedia. Them turning on their workers and paying their executives enormous salaries doesn’t necessarily mean they are compromised, but it’s a concerning pattern that we’ve seen before (hell, reddit is a good example).
Wikimedia Foundation has enough assets to keep hosting Wikipedia for the next 60 years, according to their financial reports:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/3f/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY_24-25_Audit_Report.pdf
Wikipedia will really be fine. It is all the other expenses that raise eyebrows in a major way. This, of course, includes the pay of the executives and high-ranking officials that earn anywhere between $150k to $500k a year, and their salaries keep growing exponentially. At the same time, they spend donated money hiring union-busting firms - presumably, to crush on the latest unionization attempts and keep growing their pay.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_salaries
The concern isn’t that Wikipedia sticks around. It would be the financialization of Wikipedia. Them turning on their workers and paying their executives enormous salaries doesn’t necessarily mean they are compromised, but it’s a concerning pattern that we’ve seen before (hell, reddit is a good example).
It’s good the only thing required for a website is hosting costs that never increase. And not like… maintenance.
If your operating expenses for a website outweigh hosting 50:1 while most work is done by volunteers, something is seriously wrong with your books.