> to keep those current if there's a stream of updates it can subscribe to, rather than having to constantly download the full Wikipedia database dumps and parse them out.

I mean presumably prior to this they were using the [free] parsoid rest api along with the [free] event stream api. I highly doubt they were parsing the dumps.

Its not even clear to me what the core value proposition of the new api is over the old api from the perspective of google. Maybe SLAs? A way to justify donating money without it looking like a donation?