[jessriedel]

My comment was a response to your comment, not the essay. If you want to debate that paragraph:

* The recession hypothetical is highly unrealistic, as already explored in this thread.

* A lawsuit is exactly the sort of thing that is exacerbated by giving the organization a huge endowment. You want fewer assets to be exposed. Non-profits have bankruptcy protection just like for-profits (in fact, greater), so WMF can resume operations with new donations following closing of the bankruptcy proceedings. The only thing a pile of cash helps with is staving off bankruptcy in the first place, but making WMF a juicy target is not a strategic method of doing this.

* A "scandal" that causes the WMF to lose donor support is exactly the sort of thing that should cause it to lose donor support! Why would you especially, as a critic of WMF, think that the organization should be protected in scenarios where it experiences a scandal so severe that it undermines its ability to raise the minimum funds necessary to maintain operations?

* There is no reasonable political position WMF could take that would cut off donations so severely that operations couldn't be maintained. It's donor base is huge, vastly better than other open-source non-profits, and it only needs a tiny fraction to agree with it.