Year-over-year, "revenue" and "profitability", or at least the not-for-profit version thereof, have been increasing for Wikipedia.
Every company in the world is trying to be in that exact situation.
Economics is not biology. Stasis is very hard to maintain. Typically, a business is either growing, or it is declining. Our current problems tend to revolve around companies that are too big to fail, not companies that are too big to succeed.
I would be much more concerned if Wikipedia's revenue and expenditures were flat over the past decade.
Wikipedia is a non-profit, not a company. Wikipedia's "revenues" are donations from readers, who are told that they have to donate for Wikipedia to stay online. Since almost everyone already uses Wikipedia, "growing revenue" must mean getting more donations from each user, who then might donate less to other charities.
>I would be much more concerned if Wikipedia's revenue and expenditures were flat over the past decade.
Why? The thing of value in wikipedia is the encyclopedia that was Built off of FREE LABOR by VOLUNTEERS. The increases in spending seem to be going to white collar office jobs that aren't actually necessary for The Wiki to exist and thrive. All wiki needs is servers. It shouldn't need to grow.
Wiki isn't a capitalist entity. It doesn't need to play by the rules of capital. And that it is mirroring the pattern of capitalist companies is tremendously worrying for the future of the project.
I think you hit the nail on the head. For a charity that is trying to feed starving children, they can always use more money as long as there are any starving children left. Same with most charities. But if a charity exists to but an encyclopedia on the web, they don't need to keep increasing their spending other than what is needed to cover any increases in the cost of running the servers plus a reasonable amount for support staff.
Every company in the world is trying to be in that exact situation.
Economics is not biology. Stasis is very hard to maintain. Typically, a business is either growing, or it is declining. Our current problems tend to revolve around companies that are too big to fail, not companies that are too big to succeed.
I would be much more concerned if Wikipedia's revenue and expenditures were flat over the past decade.