Free Content and Capitalists
This entry was posted on 07-21-2007 and is filed under uncategorized.
From Chuck Munson's blog: "That model, which is the dirty little secret of Web 2.0, is that you find a bunch of suckers, er, "collaborators" to create content for free and then you sell advertising and marketing information. Wikipedia has a strong community of users who are hostile to the idea of advertising on that site, so Wales and Co. are looking for new ways to generate a revenue stream from a Web 2.0 site."
Munson
What a challenge Jimmy Wales has to make some real money then for WikiMedia and then according to Munson, for himself. Competition is persistent. It often takes government intervention to prevent it, and that often fails. For someone to take a stand that Wikipedia will never make money is to fight against a persistent enemy. Competition is just things trying to equal out. It's bringing buyers and sellers together to make voluntary exchanges. To fight competition is to fight the voluntary, and Ayn Rand might have said, to fight oneself.
She also wrote about exchanging value for value, which brings me to ask, what are the hardcore Wikipedians receiving for what they do? I'd guess it's not on the financial statements whatever they are getting.
