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> What if Wikipedia started charging or restricting API access? Wikipedia has a downloadable data dump that would cost almost nothing to serve to Google, and i

> What if Wikipedia started charging or restricting API access? Wikipedia has a downloadable data dump that would cost almost nothing to serve to Google, and it has an organisational mandate to make that data available. If they decide to charge for access to that I'm sure Google can afford it. Let's not throw around completely unrealistic hypotheticals.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago
Selling "consumable" data access is called Wikimedia Enterprise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Great, this shows that they are unlikely to restrict as they already have a working business model for it with seemingly reasonable pricing (free for non-commercial, free monthly dumps, etc).
throwaw12 3y ago
> If they decide to charge for access to that I'm sure Google can afford it Sure, Google can afford it. How about asking for 10% of revenue when Wikipedia data is used to show search results? Would Google agree or starts another rival to wikipedia and kill it after 4 years? Systems are so complex that, it is very difficult to predict how they would behave given parts of system gets impacted by other constraints (Reddit vs OpenAI data scraping, Reddit's urge to make money, Reddit moderators protesting against rules, 2 day blackout extending to infinite, Google releasing LLM papers, which are impacting its own business through ChatGPT and so on)
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Well that would just be obviously against their mandate. They're a not-for-profit dedicated to providing an open encyclopedia, requiring billions from likely their main distribution channel would be nonsensical. Despite the recent actions of Twitter and Reddit, last ditch attempts to maintain any relevance in the public consciousness, most organisations act relatively rationally at a high level, and Wikimedia has the added bonus of not needing to make a profit or being publicly traded.
andersrs 3y ago
> What if Wikipedia started charging or restricting API access? Then my Puzzle Game Redactle (https://redactle.net https://redactle.net) would be threatened much like what happened to GeoGusser being charged for Google Maps. Related to the article: I've also had trouble ranking Redactle on Google because there are a few poorly implemented ad-ridden versions which are part of link farming groups. Many of them pretending to be my 'Redactle Unlimited' brand. Google loves a bunch of spam sites linking to each other more than thousands of links from authenticated users on Reddit, Facebook etc apparently.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

Selling "consumable" data access is called Wikimedia Enterprise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise

danpalmer 3y ago
Great, this shows that they are unlikely to restrict as they already have a working business model for it with seemingly reasonable pricing (free for non-commercial, free monthly dumps, etc).

throwaw12 3y ago

> If they decide to charge for access to that I'm sure Google can afford it Sure, Google can afford it. How about asking for 10% of revenue when Wikipedia data is used to show search results? Would Google agree or starts another rival to wikipedia and kill it after 4 years? Systems are so complex that, it is very difficult to predict how they would behave given parts of system gets impacted by other constraints (Reddit vs OpenAI data scraping, Reddit's urge to make money, Reddit moderators protesting against rules, 2 day blackout extending to infinite, Google releasing LLM papers, which are impacting its own business through ChatGPT and so on)

danpalmer 3y ago
Well that would just be obviously against their mandate. They're a not-for-profit dedicated to providing an open encyclopedia, requiring billions from likely their main distribution channel would be nonsensical. Despite the recent actions of Twitter and Reddit, last ditch attempts to maintain any relevance in the public consciousness, most organisations act relatively rationally at a high level, and Wikimedia has the added bonus of not needing to make a profit or being publicly traded.

andersrs 3y ago

> What if Wikipedia started charging or restricting API access? Then my Puzzle Game Redactle (https://redactle.net https://redactle.net) would be threatened much like what happened to GeoGusser being charged for Google Maps. Related to the article: I've also had trouble ranking Redactle on Google because there are a few poorly implemented ad-ridden versions which are part of link farming groups. Many of them pretending to be my 'Redactle Unlimited' brand. Google loves a bunch of spam sites linking to each other more than thousands of links from authenticated users on Reddit, Facebook etc apparently.