[cush]

The point is that's not an option. Everyone should get the public tier. And if you tried to pull a lot of data, you'd get throttled.

[ROARosen]

Totally, and if a big company like Google does not want to be throttled or they feel a need for a more advanced api, they can donate to Wikimedia for the purpose of creating such an api which will be available to everyone publicly.

[cush]

Yes exactly. Google should pay whatever would be required such that it would be free to everyone.