[moritzwarhier]

> if Wikipedia, ever in our lifetimes, goes under, it won't be because they weren't given enough money

I agree, I think it will be because they'll accept more money from commercial actors on the terms of whoever these actors are – Google currently does not seem to force any conditions on WP, as far as I can tell.

> If you want to do a good deed donate to the Internet Archive.

I agree with this as well but I consider both Wikimedia and the Internet Archive as extremely important.

Charitable causes always are at risk of "wasting" money. But the reason for that is that in a purely capitalistic sense the cause itself is not profitable.

[starkparker]

The Rockefeller Foundation donated $1 million to Abstract Wikipedia toward the development of Wikifunctions a couple weeks ago: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/12/abstract-wikipedia-gai...

Wikifunctions also got nine Google employees from a Google.org Fellowship in April 2022: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/14/google-org-fellowship-...

The people whose business models benefit from this project's success will ensure it's staffed and funded. Your donations are emphatically not needed, nor will declining to donate do anything to slow it down.

[moritzwarhier]

Thanks, I haven't been donating to WP but did not know all of that either (apart from the Google employees who are mentioned and linked already in the conversations referenced in this thread).

1 million doesn't even seem that much, but still, yes, nobody knows what donations actually mean behind the scenes (who believes in philantropy anyway?)

I mean, it's clear how much Google and others profit from WP and especially Wikidata already.

But does this mean they control the platform?