Why is it ridiculous? Wikipedia really isn't that expensive to run and clearly they have no problem raising the money. Funding based on volunteer donations seem

Why is it ridiculous? Wikipedia really isn't that expensive to run and clearly they have no problem raising the money. Funding based on volunteer donations seems a very equitable and reasonable way to fund something like Wikipedia - if it were to become totally useless for some reason people would stop donating, and that's good. If it was funded by the UN it'd become a zombie organisation that could never die even if it became irrelevant. If anything Wikipedia is an example of the opposite problem - a charity that is too successful. Do you really think 300 people are needed to maintain the Wikipedia servers and software? No, of course not, the Wikimedia organisation has grown massively over time and almost all of those staff are working on things the average Wikipedia donator wouldn't even recognise. I stopped donating to Wikipedia a long time ago, because it was clear that their fund-raising drives had stopped being connected to what the organisation actually needed to perform its mission and simply become a way to channel people's love for the work they had themselves produced together into a giant and very expensive party for a self-important management class.