[teej]

A 4% withdrawal rate has a non-zero failure rate over 30 years, let alone in perpetuity. I would say they are no where close to being completely self sustaining. Also, using math calculated for personal retirement (The Trinity Study) is not appropriate for a trust/endowment/etc. Different risk tolerance, different investment strategy, different goals.

On top of that, assuming they will have zero effective cost increases is wrong. There is so much growth left in content and users. How much has Wikipedia grown in the last five years? How well do they cover non English languages? What if they had the same size article base in English as every other language? What if every internet connected user could use Wikipedia?

Saying we could freeze Wikipedia costs in 2019 based on $90M in the bank is shortsighted.

The page on The Wikimedia Endowment is actually quite interesting if you're into finance and investing - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Endowment.

[toomuchtodo]

My numbers may need adjustment, but the principal is sound. Wikimedia must stop wasting donor funds and pleading poverty.

[teej]

I think "needs adjustment" is reductive. Wikipedia could easily 10x pageviews and article count over the next 20 years. If Wikipedia doesn't grow content, coverage, and quality they could become irrelevant. Thinking donations should just go towards keeping the lights on doesn't sit right with me. An endowment that keeps Wikipedia running forever may very well need to be over $1 billion.

It turns out, the folks who planned out the endowment were very thoughtful. Check out this great read on the motivations, challenges, and plans of the endowment. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Endowment_Essay

[a-nikolaev]

The internet technologies will be also improving, which may be even reducing their operations and maintenance costs (per page click).

And when they will _actually_ need more money, they can always ask.

[Tpt]

Yes, but for reducing ops and maintenance costs by using new techs you need people to mamke changes to the system. And it's probably not something volunteers would want to commit to do.