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But Wikipedia is no where near the same service it was in 2012. Dozens (if not hundreds) of features, increased traffic demands and higher availability, it seem

But Wikipedia is no where near the same service it was in 2012. Dozens (if not hundreds) of features, increased traffic demands and higher availability, it seems obvious that the platform would have to grow.

AbrahamParangi 7y ago
The point is that while views have increased by 10x over the past 15 years, expenses have increased by 1250x. That leaves a 125x increase in per-user spending that does not appear to be reflected in commensurate increases in user value.
- slowenough 7y ago
  > while views increased 10x over the past 15 years, expenses have increased by 1250x. That leaves a 125x Wikipedia is probably a money laundering operation. How else to explain the cooked books feel of those numbers? Edit: wow way to anger The herd! seems I've hit a nerve so I know I must be onto something. The fact that people don't want to consider this point of view makes it more likely to be the case because it's shielded from inspection, by The mirage of goodness conveyed by Wikipedia's reputation perhaps its charity status. I suppose such shielding must be how many money laundering operations work to disguise themselves. so people being outraged at the suggestion is exactly as intended and doing the work of hiding the money laundering business. This is fascinating. Well done!
wallace_f 7y ago
This argument seems shallow because the author already clearly and specifically argued that the growth in cost is not proportional to the growth in services authored. For example, one of the first arguments put forth by the author is that bandwidth costs have increased by about 11x, expenses increased by over 1,000. Even straightforward commodity expenses such as hosting costs have increased more than expected, 33x. So while yes your argument is true that in fact the platform is growing, that however as an argument hete isn't really demonstrontative of a correct understanding of the problem the author argues.
- qiqitori 7y ago
  TBH, that 3x increase in expected hosting cost (33/11) doesn't seem bad to me. Maybe Wikipedia has a lot more redundancy now, maybe their pages load faster in more countries, maybe they're using external cloud providers instead of running bare metal, maybe they host more stuff that doesn't get as many page views, etc. (For example, I'm pretty sure I could host HN off my desktop computer, but I'm sure it's hosted in a safer way than that.) How many employees is the right number? Is "1" the right number, is "300" the right number? How does Wikipedia's growth compare to other well-known companies?

AbrahamParangi 7y ago

The point is that while views have increased by 10x over the past 15 years, expenses have increased by 1250x. That leaves a 125x increase in per-user spending that does not appear to be reflected in commensurate increases in user value.

slowenough 7y ago
> while views increased 10x over the past 15 years, expenses have increased by 1250x. That leaves a 125x Wikipedia is probably a money laundering operation. How else to explain the cooked books feel of those numbers? Edit: wow way to anger The herd! seems I've hit a nerve so I know I must be onto something. The fact that people don't want to consider this point of view makes it more likely to be the case because it's shielded from inspection, by The mirage of goodness conveyed by Wikipedia's reputation perhaps its charity status. I suppose such shielding must be how many money laundering operations work to disguise themselves. so people being outraged at the suggestion is exactly as intended and doing the work of hiding the money laundering business. This is fascinating. Well done!

wallace_f 7y ago

This argument seems shallow because the author already clearly and specifically argued that the growth in cost is not proportional to the growth in services authored. For example, one of the first arguments put forth by the author is that bandwidth costs have increased by about 11x, expenses increased by over 1,000. Even straightforward commodity expenses such as hosting costs have increased more than expected, 33x. So while yes your argument is true that in fact the platform is growing, that however as an argument hete isn't really demonstrontative of a correct understanding of the problem the author argues.

qiqitori 7y ago
TBH, that 3x increase in expected hosting cost (33/11) doesn't seem bad to me. Maybe Wikipedia has a lot more redundancy now, maybe their pages load faster in more countries, maybe they're using external cloud providers instead of running bare metal, maybe they host more stuff that doesn't get as many page views, etc. (For example, I'm pretty sure I could host HN off my desktop computer, but I'm sure it's hosted in a safer way than that.) How many employees is the right number? Is "1" the right number, is "300" the right number? How does Wikipedia's growth compare to other well-known companies?