The main questions for the foundation are: is its mission worthy, and is it spending money well in service to that mission?
This piece barely considers this, and instead just presumes there’s something wrong with Wikipedia successfully growing.
There are so many poor points in the article… let’s see:
* the $10M/year number was a base number for 2013. Running Wikipedia at that level assumes nothing costs more and services will revert to 2013 levels. If that’s what you think they would do, you need to explain why that is a good idea or even possible.
* the fact that fundraising from end-users is working is a good thing, not a bad thing. If end-users aren’t paying the bills then someone else will be - in which case you have to balance their needs against the users’ - or no one will be and Wikipedia will stop existing.
* implying WMF financial reporting is “disguising” the amount of money and characterizing it as “funneling” money is misleading and unfair. It’s all transparently there, in straightforward form.
* Non-profits need to raise funds so they need staff to do so. Large organizations need a CEO and some managers. It’s OK that they pay people normal amounts to do these jobs.
* The idea that it’s offensive or wrong to ask end-users for donations is bizarre. Who else do you think should be paying for Wikipedia?
The only legit point I see (buried among the vacuous ones) is that Wikipedia should stay far away from any for-profit business. Yes, they are leaving a clear revenue stream on the table, but I think it will make their primary mission harder. Content flows freely into Wikipedia because it is given freely to everyone else. Once you start charging for the information in some forms, that all begins to change.