Why You Should Donate to Wikipedia?
There is no such thing as free services — let’s make sure we keep the best parts of the internet alive!
We can’t imagine the contemporary use of the internet, without a couple of big and time-proven heavy players. And one of the highest shining stars above all of them — is “first factual source for everything”… The one and only — Wikipedia.
It was Thursday afternoon when the first time ever, Wikipedia politely asked me to donate them something. I can even clearly remember what I was “googling” back then in my bed. It was Integral Theory, developed by (among others) Ken Wilber.
And this got me thinking…
How Wikipedia changed our lives?
Gone are the days when you had to have a full enormous set of dedicated encyclopedia books to have most of the human knowledge on your shelf. It was a handy rendition of googling — this was all before the internet as we know it, changed everything forever.
Now we live in a weird time — there is an infinite amount of megabytes of information surrounding us. Rare are the cases, when you look something up online and you get less than a million results. Because everybody, with any kind of device — can just shout what they think into the void.
And the best of us, the richest, the smartest, the sneakiest and overall — those who try to manipulate the internet to serve their subjective interests, know how to make it that their point of view, their vision would surface as the most popular one.
In most cases, it’s simply called doing SEO, but it’s way much more complex than that.
Wikipedia is where our children copy-paste their school reports from. Wikipedia is the first (or at least highlighted) result if you google almost any topic you want to learn more about.
Wikipedia serves as step one in any internet search.
Wikipedia deleted our need to stock on heavy and difficult to navigate piles of books — it made the first step of any learning process as easy as it can be.
Today, as soon as you have a question on your phone — you ask that question. And you immediately get the answer to that question. Is it the best answer? Google thinks so, but that doesn’t mean it’s always the case.
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance” — Confucius
From my personal experience, in most cases — first reading an article on the topic of your interest on Wikipedia always serves as the ground stone in understanding how much You don’t know and how deep this can go. Like always, this can always go deeper than needed or first suspected… But at least you can feel how much information there might be out there.
Why Wikipedia is so important to us?
Whenever you discuss any topic with someone — especially if they feel like they understand the topic, You at least assume that they have read a couple of articles about it on Wikipedia.
Sadly enough, most of us can be lazy and some cultures, more than others makes it even more difficult for some people to get into the habit of doing proper research… By making it ok to value your personal opinion at the same base value level as an actual proven fact (I am looking at you ‘merica!).
Without getting into the topic of how close actual facts are to beliefs we hold — let’s just focus on what information value Wikipedia actually holds.
Wikipedia makes sure that we have an entry-level factual and terminological understanding of the topic we are planning to dive in to. Wikipedia tries as hard as possible to be as non-bias as reasonably plausible.
What’s why we all agree that we trust it.
Sure, there are mistakes here and there, some of those mistakes in Wikipedia articles can be even very fundamentally flaw. History books are also filled with mistakes. Because history is written by those in charge, so it never can deliver on a clear actual image. No matter how hard you try not to be bias — there is no such thing as complete non-bias.
Where there is a system, there are ways to manipulate it. And every utopia will become a dystopia.
With that being said, Wikipedia is the most trusted source of knowledge we have on the internet. Period.
Just like the stock market exists, just like any cryptocurrency makes any sense — as long as big enough group of people agrees that these things hold any value. So does Wikipedia serves as the first valuable source for all arguments we have… As long as most of us see Wikipedia as the most trusted source.
And at this point — we all do agree on that. At least the majority of internet users do.
Free means You don’t pay in cash
Free Google services, means you pay with your data. Free Facebook means you not only pay with Your data, it means You also give away complete understanding of Your close personal connections. But Netflix is not free? But Medium is not free (the full Medium)?
When formulated, Newton’s third law of motion is: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other terms, something can’t be made out of nothing, and something that exists can’t stop existing.
In digital age this means — everything costs something. Even the free stuff. Some studies estimate that if You would pay Facebook ~12 dollars a year, You would be making them the same amount of money that Facebook generates from ads — per single user. As their massive audience grows, these estimates can vary widely, but most of the estimates remain mostly somewhere in 1 to 100 dollars/year range.
This means, that Medium, Netflix, Spotify, and many other subscription-based, quality-not-quantity oriented business models are asking reasonable pay from their users… Is a perfect sweet spot price for almost any major service.
Wikipedia is not like others
The value that Wikipedia generated ever since it has been launched back in 2001 — can’t be compared to almost any other service in the world.
It’s a unique project with a unique vision, with an even more basic business plan — most of it is completely volunteer-based. Let’s don’t get too deep into this here because we are not trying to argue about is this the most right way of doing something like this.
We are arguing about value.
There are just a handful of services out there that created so much value for the way we live our lives. And most of them charge You something. Or just take something without asking from You.
Wikipedia is far away from any of this.
Donate and make it a subscription!
I pay monthly for Netflix. I pay monthly for Spotify. I pay for monthly GSuite. I pay monthly for access to Medium (best 5 dollars ever spent). I pay monthly for some other magnificent services. I choose to do so, because of a simple reason — I think these services bring me more value than they ask for.
The human brain always wants to win. That’s why we only pay for something if we think it brings us more value when compared with the resources we have to give up for it.
If you don’t feel that You have to pay a monthly 2/5/10 dollar payment for Wikipedia to stay as we know it (without ads, data mining and other nasty things) — ask Yourself this.
How much value Wikipedia brings me every day?
The initial response You might have can be simple — You don’t read Wikipedia every day, some of us don’t even do that every month. Which would mean that donating once because You understand and care what happens if Wikipedia has to change its business practices, to a more Facebook’ish approach would make more sense than adding Wikipedia to Your “subscribe and pay for” monthly list.
Well, then — think deeper. Who around You uses Wikipedia every day? Your children? Your cousins? Journalists, that serve You news every day? Your friend that provokes You with ideas whenever You meet them? Dumb politicians, that have no clue what they are talking about (there’s more than THAT one)?
The answer is — Everybody You know, at least once used it. And all of us rely on others to be able to use Wikipedia. Because we all agree, that if there is a need for information, it should be provided free to anyone who needs it.
Because we wouldn't want for this right to be taken from us, even if we don’t practice this right every day. We want to keep this right for information available for each of us personally and that’s why we don’t want to deny anybody else from it.
Not many sources of information can deliver this much value as Wikipedia can (and does this every single second) — we got used to treating this as a commodity. But every great thing has to be nurtured properly. Otherwise, it will slowly change and eventually disappear. Or even worse, turn in to something worse than it once was.
You don’t want for Wikipedia to become like every “tech-review-website” on the planet, trying to affiliate link force You into buying something. Because that wouldn’t be professional.
You don’t want Wikipedia to mine Your data and to micro-adapt articles to fit Your biases in a way where it makes You spend time more on the platform.
You don’t want Wikipedia to charge You a forced monthly subscription to get access to all human knowledge. That would mean someone can’t afford to learn and better themselves if they wish so. Which is the worst possible thing imaginable.
Wikipedia says that 2 dollars per user are what would make it stay free.
I say, 2 dollars per month is how much value Wikipedia brings You every month no matter how You look at this, no matter if You use it directly or get the value just because someone around You used it.
I say, doesn’t matter how rich or poor You are — making a stable monthly contribution that just makes sure nobody in the world is denied of the learning process fundamental steps is what we all owe Wikipedia.
Oh, and if You decide that You want to contribute to the future of free knowledge and feel responsible to do so — after donating, let me know with a tiny response. Knowing that at least one person made Wikipedia a subscription — would mean a lot to me!