[WikiEN-l] Advertising on Wikipedia

[Anthony]

On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 6:59 PM, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>wrote:

> Sure, we could "sell out", and make a very significant (tens of
> millions of dollars or more) income stream.  The customers (users who
> don't edit) wouldn't mind it if it was done in a limited and tasteful
> manner.
>
> But the community would rip itself apart and a large portion of those
> involved would leave, forking and never coming back.
>
> There's nothing we can do with that amount of money, towards the goals
> of the Foundation or projects, which would make up for the community
> damage that would be caused.


I think there's a very good chance that you're right, but this strikes me as
so incredibly irrational that I have trouble accepting that it's the only
possible scenario.

Let's assume the ads are limited and tasteful, and that the "customers"
don't mind them.  Obviously logged in users wouldn't be forced to view the
ads.  In fact, let's assume logged in users don't see ads at all unless they
opt-in.  And while not logged in, opting out should be incredibly easy -
click one button and a cookie gets set which *permanently* turns ads off.
Most importantly, let's assume the net profit raised from the ads goes
solely to making the contributor experience better.  This is a big
assumption, and probably would never happen in reality, but it's certainly
*possible* (note that I'm only talking about the net profit, clearly some
portion of the revenues would have to go to the additional expenses of
serving ads).

Given these assumptions, I find it hard to see how it's not clearly a
win-win-win for just about everyone involved.

Like I said, I think there's a very good chance you're right, and that a
large portion of the community would freak out anyway, but it doesn't really
make any sense.  Maybe the community is just smart enough to realize that my
assumptions are unrealistic?