Question from Maya: I just heard Wikipedia is going to start charging people a monthly fee if they want to keep using their website.
I use them a lot and it concerns me that they might start making me pay.
Are they really planning to start charging their users a fee?
Rick’s answer: Maya, this is one of those rumors that actually has a factual basis.
In a way, I guess you could say the answer to your question is “sort of”.
It all depends on which set of users you are referring to…
Wikipedia is in fact planning to start charging for access to their data, but it won’t affect individual users like you and me in any way.
What they’re actually doing is negotiating with large companies like Google, Apple and Amazon to get them to pay for access to Wikipedia data.
In various ways those companies (and plenty more for that matter) are using data from Wikipedia to make money for themselves.
For example, when you ask Siri, Alexa or “Hey Google” a question, the answer you receive more often than not is retrieved from Wikipedia.
And truth be told, those “virtual assistants” and the immediate answers they provide are huge selling points for the devices that feature them.
As you probably know, Wikipedia has historically been financed by voluntary contributions, and that won’t be changing. You’ll still continue to see requests for donations popping up on Wikipedia pages.
But Wikipedia is also going to start collecting fees from several of the large companies that have been getting a free ride on Wikipedia’s virtual back for a very long time.
Bottom line: Wikipedia is in fact going to start charging fees for access to their data, but individual users won’t be the ones paying them.
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