Its cool that people are donating, but they are doing it without knowing that the wikimedia foundation is actually receiving like 100 times the amount in donations that it needs to run Wikipedia. All the while the banners say something like “Wikipedia is fucking dying we need more donations NOW”. Yes lots of the other projects of the foundation are probably good and they have more legal and quality control costs now than 20 years ago, but its not thaaat much and its just not what is being communicated to the users. And as this guy has pointed out, there is no such thing as infinite growth, so the question is what happens when that juicy donation income starts dropping? Or what if all the people working at the foundation want to unionize? And now we know…
On the other hand it’s legitimately one of the wonders of the digital world. A communally edited source of knowledge free for all to access. While it’s good to scrutinise foundations and how they are run I’ve not seen anyone propose a better solution so far. The data is freely licensed so forking is possible but it’s not really the technical details that make Wikipedia the resource it is today.
That graph isnt as damning as you think… it means they have a single year of runway at best. ideally net assets should be large enough they can live off the float.
Its not about them hoarding money, its about the seemingly unstoppable growth in expenses. Why are they not trying to stabilize their expenses as a donation dependent foundation? The server costs arent growing and will realistically still be at most a couple million dollars annualy, so why are they spending exponentiall increasing amounts of money on other stuff. Shouldnt they try to build up 10+ years of reserves to ensure wikipedia survives when the money dries up? Because if people stopped donating right now, they would run out of money next year.
Why are they not trying to stabilize their expenses as a donation dependent foundation?
They do? financials are publicly reported. there is a modest increase each year in salaries and infrastructure costs. which can be explained via inflation adjustments. (not saying it is if workers are unionizing) but from the financials only concerning bit are the grants/professional services line items which are entirely discretionary and/or legal.
so why are they spending exponentiall increasing amounts of money on other stuff.
they arent. do you know what ‘exponential’ means?
Shouldnt they try to build up 10+ years of reserves to ensure wikipedia survives when the money dries up?
Thats literally what they’re doing. see graphs net assets.
Because if people stopped donating right now, they would run out of money next year.
so stop. seems like the issue will resolve itself. but the only concerning bit here is admin’s fighting union. not their financials
“Modest increase” lmao. Literally like ~10% year over year for 20 years.
The graph is very much exponential. If it had grown linear since 2006, they would have annual expenses of less than 5 million dollars. Recently it has started increasing slightly less fast, but its still increasing at an insane rate.
The yearly expenses for 2025 were ~190 million dollars. The assets were 300 million. So they have assets to cover expenses for 1.5 years IF their expenses stopped growing.
Large amounts of money breeds greed. The whole unionbusting thing is obviously a result of the upper management getting a little too comfortable with their reliable income stream.
“Modest increase” lmao. Literally like ~10% year over year for 20 years.
its literally tracking inflation when i looked at the costs.
The graph is very much exponential.
it very much isnt. the only line items that were exponential were the professional services and grants. the rest tracked inflation or were linear. and inflation is not in their control. its why the graph looks exponential but thats not a factor wikipedia controls.
they would have annual expenses of less than 5 million dollars.
literally impossible to have that situation in an economic system where inflation exists and salaries are your dominating expense.
You need to normalize for inflation to see the increase accurately.
If their expenses were growing exponentially we wouldnt see the net assets line growing faster.
edit: just for the record, I’m just eyeballing their numbers. the signal that makes WMF’s finances concerning is them fighting unionization. not the relative YOY changes, those mostly look reasonable.
what fighting the union means: they’re underpaying their staff and most compensation is going to admin. thats the problem, and it wont be resolved unless the workers force organizational changes.
For people interested in some numbers have this user post that has been getting updated every year called “Wikipedia has Cancer”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer
Its cool that people are donating, but they are doing it without knowing that the wikimedia foundation is actually receiving like 100 times the amount in donations that it needs to run Wikipedia. All the while the banners say something like “Wikipedia is fucking dying we need more donations NOW”. Yes lots of the other projects of the foundation are probably good and they have more legal and quality control costs now than 20 years ago, but its not thaaat much and its just not what is being communicated to the users. And as this guy has pointed out, there is no such thing as infinite growth, so the question is what happens when that juicy donation income starts dropping? Or what if all the people working at the foundation want to unionize? And now we know…
On the other hand it’s legitimately one of the wonders of the digital world. A communally edited source of knowledge free for all to access. While it’s good to scrutinise foundations and how they are run I’ve not seen anyone propose a better solution so far. The data is freely licensed so forking is possible but it’s not really the technical details that make Wikipedia the resource it is today.
Download it forever, then.
https://kiwix.org/en/
That graph isnt as damning as you think… it means they have a single year of runway at best. ideally net assets should be large enough they can live off the float.
Its not about them hoarding money, its about the seemingly unstoppable growth in expenses. Why are they not trying to stabilize their expenses as a donation dependent foundation? The server costs arent growing and will realistically still be at most a couple million dollars annualy, so why are they spending exponentiall increasing amounts of money on other stuff. Shouldnt they try to build up 10+ years of reserves to ensure wikipedia survives when the money dries up? Because if people stopped donating right now, they would run out of money next year.
They do? financials are publicly reported. there is a modest increase each year in salaries and infrastructure costs. which can be explained via inflation adjustments. (not saying it is if workers are unionizing) but from the financials only concerning bit are the grants/professional services line items which are entirely discretionary and/or legal.
they arent. do you know what ‘exponential’ means?
Thats literally what they’re doing. see graphs net assets.
so stop. seems like the issue will resolve itself. but the only concerning bit here is admin’s fighting union. not their financials
“Modest increase” lmao. Literally like ~10% year over year for 20 years.
The graph is very much exponential. If it had grown linear since 2006, they would have annual expenses of less than 5 million dollars. Recently it has started increasing slightly less fast, but its still increasing at an insane rate.
The yearly expenses for 2025 were ~190 million dollars. The assets were 300 million. So they have assets to cover expenses for 1.5 years IF their expenses stopped growing.
Large amounts of money breeds greed. The whole unionbusting thing is obviously a result of the upper management getting a little too comfortable with their reliable income stream.
its literally tracking inflation when i looked at the costs.
it very much isnt. the only line items that were exponential were the professional services and grants. the rest tracked inflation or were linear. and inflation is not in their control. its why the graph looks exponential but thats not a factor wikipedia controls.
literally impossible to have that situation in an economic system where inflation exists and salaries are your dominating expense.
You need to normalize for inflation to see the increase accurately.
If their expenses were growing exponentially we wouldnt see the net assets line growing faster.
edit: just for the record, I’m just eyeballing their numbers. the signal that makes WMF’s finances concerning is them fighting unionization. not the relative YOY changes, those mostly look reasonable.
what fighting the union means: they’re underpaying their staff and most compensation is going to admin. thats the problem, and it wont be resolved unless the workers force organizational changes.