What if a simple web query enabled you to navigate almost four million articles cross-referenced to original sources across the Internet?
How much would you pay a database that was compiled and constantly updated and scrutinised by experts?
I’d willingly pay at least $10 a month. But I don’t need too. A free-to-access encyclopaedia called Wikipedia already exists.
Between 1768 and 2001 Encyclopaedia Britannica had a monopoly on the reference business. It employs 4,000 contributors and 100 editors to maintain 65,000 articles. £50 buys web access for a year.
By contrast Wikipedia has 95 staff. It has 16 million registered contributors, 300,000 of whom have made more than 10 edits.
Wikipedia is financed via voluntary donations. It’s about to close it latest round of fundraising.
If you are one of the 400 million Wikipedia users that access a billion pages every month please consider making a donation to keep this fantastic community free of advertising.
