[WikiEN-l] Real-time mirrors as a net revenue _source_?

[Anthere]

Neil Harris wrote:
> Real-time mirrors seem to be a recurring phenomenon. They are a drain on 
> Wikipedia's resources, and hunting them and shooting them down is a 
> continuing battle.
> 
> The reasoning behind these mirrors appears to be:
> 
> 1 putting up a Wikipedia mirror with ads will make money...
> 2 too lazy to set up a proper mirror...
> 3 instead, set up a script that queries Wikipedia in real time...
> 4 profit!
> 
> However; why not turn this on its head, and offer a real-time, or 
> near-real-time, Wikipedia feed service to paid-up subscribers?
> 
> Currently, Wikipedia's running costs are about $1.2M per year, and this 
> pays for, among other things, serving about 4000 hits per second, that 
> is to say, about 1.26 x 10^11 hits per year, or about $ 10^-5 per hit. 
> (Of course, this is average gross cost; marginal cost will be 
> significantly higher, say $ 10^-4 per hit).
> 
> Web advertising rates are generally of the order of $1 CPM: that is, $ 
> 10^-3 per hit. If an advertiser manages to get 10,000,000 hits per year, 
> they will make $10,000 in ad revenue, and costs the Wikimedia Foundation 
> around $1000 in leeched server load.
> 
> What if we were to turn things round, and charge (say) $ 2 x 10^-4 per 
> hit for an official real-time mirror service? (Of course, this would be 
> aggregated in lumps, because it's impossible to bill tiny fractions of a 
> dollar). Now, the economics to the mirror operator is $ 10^-3 - $0.2 x 
> 10^-3 per hit, and they still make 80% of the money they would have 
> before, and don't need to worry about being cut off. However, the 
> economics for the WF are now quite different: instead of losing $ 10^-4 
> per hit, the Foundation would make $ 2 x 10^-4 income - $ 10^-4 cost per 
> hit, and thus makes $ 1000 gross profit over the course of the year for 
> those 10,000,000 hits, which can be ploughed back into achieving the 
> Foundation's charitable goals (for example, by buying new server kit and 
> bandwidth, or paying for other real-world activities).
> 
> Note that the users of the real-time mirrors are _not_ being charged for 
> use of the GFDL content, which remains freely available as before; they 
> are being charged for real-time access to WP data, with no need to run a 
> modified copy of MediaWiki in order to run their service.
> 
> Administration of the scheme could be made automatic, by allowing the 
> existing credit-card interface to be used to for payment, and entering 
> an IP address or addresses to be authorized, an E-mail address for 
> contact, and getting an authorization key mailed back.
> 
> As a result:
> * Wikipedia remains ad-free
> * the WF gets revenue
> * the advertisers still get to make (slightly less) money, but this time 
> without leeching unauthorized resources.
> 
> The feed could be provided from the existing software, only with a "null 
> skin" that produced only the rendered page content, thus both slightly 
> reducing the load of producing it (eg. no check for messages, greater 
> possibility for caching), and, at the same time, making the page content 
> easier to re-use, by removing the need to strip the user-interface from 
> around the page contents.
> 
> With other changes, for example, not checking for red/blue links, 
> serving costs could probably be reduced even further, and quote possibly 
> WF could charge more than $ 2 x 10^-4 per hit. Given the number of 
> mirrors around, setting up this scheme might pay for itself in a month 
> or less.
> 
> Good idea, or bad idea?
> 
> -- Neil

The live feed service exist. Generally, it is a bad idea to let 
live-mirrors as they are a drain on our resources. For this reason, a 
service is provided against a certain fee, meant to at least cover the 
costs of feeding the live-mirror.

There could be two main sources of customers. Either mirrors or 
potential customers are directly contacted by Terry. Or live-mirrors are 
blocked by developpers and as a consequence contact the board to 
complain or look for another solution. In this case, we answer them that 
they can either choose the dump or sign a contract with us for a live feed.

Now... to be fair, there are very few customers :-) So the income made 
through this mean is frankly... limited.

Why is it so ? Well, it may be a mixture. Possibly Terry contacting few 
potential customers. Possibly blocked live mirrors not being informed of 
that solution (now, you know, so next time a blocked mirror complains, 
please tell it to contact us). Possibly a lack of reactivity to propose 
contracts. Or lack of understanding from the people in OTRS about what 
the live feed is...

So, to go back to your original mail, yes, good idea. Good idea to 
implement more widely.

Ant