If you use it, you should donate.

[Vanraw]

But price is the very foundation of compitition. Also your mislead to think wikipedia had a large amount of money or was the cause of the giant encyclopedia companies from going out of business. I mean seriously, Encarta was Microsoft for god sake and they had billions. They jumped into the business because Grolier and Compton’s were making money online. Blame Encarta for the destruction of the hard copy encyclopedia companies that didn’t react, not Wiki who came much later.

The bottom line is these companies didn’t fail because of wiki, they failed because they were giant fat media companies that never learned to compete. All they really needed to do was go to the advertisement model and make billions.

I remember when my kids were little and encyclopedia Britannica was like 2 grand. “2 grand” I told the door to door asshole who was tryng to guilt my wife into “providing for our kids intellectual future” (ie your stupid if you don’t give me 2 grand. FYI in the 80’s 2 grand was more then it is now. They were fat and caught sleeping by Encarta. They didn’t react, they said, Encarta is thin content. They lost.

I have no pity for a dinosaur company that doesn’t react to the market and then dies. There is zero reason these companies could not have competed with wiki on integrity of content alone.

But having said that, it is sad that many people think wiki is the gospel of knowledge.