I remember this essay, the author’s main argument was: Wikipedia seemed fine 10 years ago with 5% of its current money, so the increased spending (and calls for

I remember this essay, the author’s main argument was: Wikipedia seemed fine 10 years ago with 5% of its current money, so the increased spending (and calls for donations to cover it) seems unjustified. I side with the author in requesting more transparency about what exactly donations get spent on, but this strict argument in terms of how spending growth just “looks” unreasonable isn’t convincing. Namely, it’s pretty plausible to me that scaling big to very big is more costly than scaling medium to big, so this comparison of increasing costs to cancer makes me skeptical. I don’t have any proof that Wikipedia uses donations judiciously, but the scale and quality of the service they offer relative to the annual revenue (about 100m) and expenses (about 80m) seems...pretty good. At any rate, I mostly view this as “paying a little for a good service” rather than “donating efficiently”. But thanks for the pointer.