Hacker News Reader

Comment by daurnimator | Hacker News Reader

I (and most people) used to buy encyclopedias. If wikipedia didn't exist, I would again...

I used to buy encyclopedias too, paper first and later on CD. But let's be honest here, there is no coming back from Wikipedia. The amount of informations on every single subject, the details, the fact that's its extremely dynamic (yes this new Usain Bolt world record is updated faster than than the actually record time), this is incomparable.

How many information sources do you currently pay for on a monthly basis?

How many times have you actually clicked the "donate" button when Jimmy Wales asks you to?

Zero and several, respectively.

It's still interesting to note that the Wikimedia Foundation is getting more cash in donations than it requires to operate. If it wasn't a non-profit, it would actually turn out a profit.

I don't know what their current cost structure is, but assuming they don't currently pay contributors in a meaningful amount, going for profit would mean they would probably have to, and COGS would go way way up. The current income probably wouldn't cover it.

Why would they have to? Contributors do so voluntarily. This is no different than Quora or Stackoverflow which are both for-profit and don't pay for content.

It does turn a profit. You can be a non-profit and still turn a profit. You just don’t get taxed for generating income the same way, since we assume the profits help the greater good; since, we as a people, (not greed)(ideally) deemed it to be so.

That's not the main difference. The main difference is that the profits can not be paid out investors. They have to be re-invested in the company.

A couple and zero.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com