Please don't hate on my comment, all I can do is ask not to be downvoted, at least I tried. Here is my case against Wikipedia. In a capitalistic model it makes little sense why Wikipedia should thrive without enriching someone so massively in the process, therefore, it must be corrected. If we assume that line of thinking is valid (which I'm not saying we should or shouldn't) then it follows that an alternative Wikipedia riddled with ads would be a superior model, in terms of capitalism. It'd be much more similar to imdb perhaps, owned by Amazon. Wikipedia (in the film category) provides information in a much effective way and can stay on top of change by issuing revisions way better than imdb can ever do.
If we jump to the most logical conclusion of the set of assumptions made above I think it then follows that readily accessible knowledge cannot necessarily be a good thing, otherwise, the market would have rewarded that. But we see in the case of imdb market did not reward it enough for it to achieve the same pedigree as Wikipedia.
It's not good for people to learn facts that easily. There should be a higher cost associated with that. This is of course a ridiculous conclusion but I think it could make sense why it would be true. It is a whole other post for why it would be true but I will only give an example or two.
One example is if knowledge is that easily accessible then anyone could achieve it without necessarily having enough desire to achieve said knowledge, and since we have limited capacity for knowledge acquisition and retainment we are most likely sacrificing knowledge that we are truly passionate about.
Second example is maybe it isn't good for people to know so much anyway. After all there are many things that due to the laws of nature we are inherently incapable of ever knowing such as what is beyond knowable universe (nothing can travel faster than speed of light so we cannot learn about it since the knowledge or light from stuff beyond the knowable universe won't have enough time to ever reach us.)
Ha, I don't actually think people are downvoting me as much as I expected. Also you seem to be confusing cause and effect. The 1st sentence of my post was asking not to be downvoted, even if people did downvote later on I had no way of knowing that when I wrote that comment.
> In a capitalistic model it makes little sense why Wikipedia should thrive without enriching someone so massively in the process, therefore, it must be corrected
Err what? If a model of reality is incorrect you throw out the model, you dont try to modify reality to fit the model.
This is akin to saying something like: Solar panels* dont work in classical physics therefore coal is better.
* iana physicist. I assume they have something to do with quantum physics but dont really know
Well sometimes you do, McDonald's exists not because the food they provide is perfectly nutritious and what a human body needs to remedy hunger. I already concede that capitalism does distort reality.
I dont even know what you are trying to claim. Is one of your premises that capitalism predicts the highest quality product wins at the marketplace? Because that's not what capitalism is. If it was we would all be eating at 5 star resturants all the time as they have the highest quality product when you ignore price.
Are you trying to claim that part of the reason mcdonald's is succesful is because they have a lot of money to spend on advertising and inertia? If so you are misunderstanding my point (or its just a non sequitor). The fact that gaining a lot of capital allows you an (arguably unfair, especially relative to idealized capitalism) advantage in the market place has nothing to do with my criticism that you are fallaciously finding evidence that contradicts your simplified model and then concluding that reality is wrong instead of your model.
You're glossing over that Wikipedia would not be feasible if you had to pay people to do it, and if it were not free, you'd have to pay people to do it. Your "capitalistic model" likely does not correspond sufficiently to reality to be useful. And why did you write this comment? There is no need for a "case against Wikipedia."
I agree with asdfasgasdgasdg, and don't understand your reasoning.
Imho the fact that Wikipedia is not commercially marketized is inherent to its success. Feels like a breath of fresh air to have such a rich source of open access information, to search for e.g. medical info rather than trusting Google with it.
If anything, Wikipedia shows to me that people have a longing for more initiatives like that, and they will then reject commercial alternatives that exist.
Did you copypaste that guy's name, or did you type the whole thing out? Did you have his comment out in a second window so you could look back and forth to check your spelling?
The real question is did you copy and paste and searched for it to see if it is actually the same username or did you just guess that they're the same spelling?
You can only reach these sort of conclusions if you put capitalism on a stand, like a god from which everything true clearly must derive. Like an axiom. If that's what you believe, then so be it. But otherwise what you're saying seems to be nothing more than a random walk.
If we jump to the most logical conclusion of the set of assumptions made above I think it then follows that readily accessible knowledge cannot necessarily be a good thing, otherwise, the market would have rewarded that. But we see in the case of imdb market did not reward it enough for it to achieve the same pedigree as Wikipedia.
It's not good for people to learn facts that easily. There should be a higher cost associated with that. This is of course a ridiculous conclusion but I think it could make sense why it would be true. It is a whole other post for why it would be true but I will only give an example or two.
One example is if knowledge is that easily accessible then anyone could achieve it without necessarily having enough desire to achieve said knowledge, and since we have limited capacity for knowledge acquisition and retainment we are most likely sacrificing knowledge that we are truly passionate about.
Second example is maybe it isn't good for people to know so much anyway. After all there are many things that due to the laws of nature we are inherently incapable of ever knowing such as what is beyond knowable universe (nothing can travel faster than speed of light so we cannot learn about it since the knowledge or light from stuff beyond the knowable universe won't have enough time to ever reach us.)