He's a lightning rod that potential leakers are likely to trust not to leak who they are. Anybody trying to build a wikileaks clone would have to build trust,

He's a lightning rod that potential leakers are likely to trust not to leak who they are. Anybody trying to build a wikileaks clone would have to build trust, especially to prove that they're not a state actor. But even if you're leaking to a potentially untrustworthy wikileaks clone, there's technologies that can make it possible. (anonymous remailers, tor (combined with other web anonymizing tech), etc) As more people get used to how the internet works it'll become easier for potential leakers to trust those types of sources. In other words: it's a bit of hassle to replace him outright. His replacement might be a decentralized system of some sort.