>The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
The mission is NOT "get as much donation money as possible" and donations should exist to support the mission not vice-versa. Google seems to be helping in their mission of disseminating information.
> The mission is NOT "get as much donation money as possible"
No, it's not, but it should go without saying that accomplishing the mission includes keeping Wikipedia alive and functioning. It would hardly be accomplished if Wikemedia goes under, leaving Google, Bing, DDG, and other search engines to either use out-of-date information, or worse: update that information through questionable practices.
I understand that Wikipedia is a non-profit organization. But that doesn't mean that they don't have costs that need to be paid, nor does it mean that they will celebrate shutting down and handing responsibility for their mission over to a for-profit company that has no concern for that mission.
Wikipedia has costs and needs to raise money to cover those costs. Caching results on Google search pages may reduce some hosting expenses, but that's only a gain so long as the money saved in server costs is more than the money lost from disappearing donations.
And an organization without consistent revenue (such as from selling a product or service) needs much more runway than an organization that can depend on sales to regularly replenish the bank account. Because when the Google and other search engines eliminate the last of Wikipedia's donations, the only factor in Wikipedia's lifespan is how much cash they have in their coffers. And the more donations they collect now, the longer the runway they will have.
Wikimedia raises an order of magnitude more funding than it needs to cover basic hosting and operating costs. Losing some of those funds to further it's mission seems very much a net gain for it's mission.
>Wikipedia has costs and needs to raise money to cover those costs.
Hosting cost Wikimedia $2 million last year. It raised $120 million. It spent more on fundraising than it did on hosting.
>Because when the Google and other search engines eliminate the last of Wikipedia's donations
People, amazingly, go to Wikipedia independent of search engines and only a fraction of Wikimedia donations go to hosting costs. Wikipedia can likely survive indefinitely on organic views and their donations.
>The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
The mission is NOT "get as much donation money as possible" and donations should exist to support the mission not vice-versa. Google seems to be helping in their mission of disseminating information.