Well that was a wild ride! This reads like a string of tweets... I took some notes along the way:

- The Wikimedia Foundation is not the same thing as Wikipedia.

This is true.

- The foundation's total expenditure increased about tenfold over ten years (2010-2020), to ~112 million USD in 2020

- Yet "Wikipedia seems to be functionally the same website as it was 10 years ago"

Sure, if you reduce it to a website with text that you can read, it was that then and it is that now. Of course, we now know that Wikipedia is not Wikimedia Foundation, so this seems a bit irrelevant...

- In 2021 the Wikimedia Foundation paid ~100,000 USD less for internet hosting than in 2012.

OK. Hosting costs were ~2,500,000 -- now? Slashed! To ~2,400,000! I guess they did some optimisation or got a good deal or something.

- 43% of the foundation's expenses are "direct support to websites", by their own admission

On the page where the percentages screenshot was taken, it explains what this means (and how it's not just server costs). I don't really know if this is a reasonable percentage. But I do know that applying arbitrary judgements to that percentage (it's "less than half") is unreasonable.

It costs money to run the foundation and do the fundraising. The highest single expense listed is "salaries and wages".

- In 2005 Jimmy Wales did a TED talk and the phrase "ragtag band of volunteers" was used. The Wikipedia website at that time was largely run by unpaid volunteers.

I guess Jimbo used to be cool, probably. In 2005, none of the people running Wikipedia even got paid. And the articles are written by creeps on the internet! But these days, the foundation pays its staff. They even employ people to manage the money coming in and going out!

- Wikipedia has a "neutral point of view" policy. But the Wikimedia Foundation, self-proclaimed proponents of free and open knowledge, have politics and a definition of racial equity. They also want the police to not kill people, and please not make protesting illegal.

Organisations with purposes tend to be political. That's what things are. What will really blow your mind is that complaining about someone else's political views is extremely political.

- The foundation gives some of the money they receive (the donor cash) to other organisations that they support.

That's fair enough I guess, but I'm all for criticising where the people's money is going.

- One such not-for-profit, SeRCH Foundation, received $250,000 as a two-year investment. They used the word "hyperspace". They have a Youtube channel and it has long videos on it and they have much smaller view counts than what you would hope for.

If this is the best (worst) example they could find, I don't think I'm going to be convinced...

SeRCH use some language in an unfamiliar and seemingly self-aware way. I don't think it's written for you, mate.

It's $125,000 a year, seeing as we're so concerned about yearly expenses.

It's clear that their Youtube channel is not the entirety of even their video-based "output". The titles of some of the videos shown suggest that it's just a couple of "episodes" of a substantial series ("S7E5").

- Borealis Philanthropy is even more political (than either/both Wikimedia or SeRCH, I guess) and guess what -- they too got a sweet quarter mil for their "Racial Equity in Journalism Fund". The funds are a "one-year investment to support US-based journalism organizations led by and for people of color".

The problem here seems to be that the money was used to support journalism organizations led by and for people of color.

They included a screenshot of some text about another thing that Borealis Philanthropy do or did once which was the "Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund". You don't need me to tell you that that was politics.

A quick look at the foundation's financials from other years suggests the amount of "awards and grants" given can vary significantly each year. Show us something concrete that shows that the money going to these organisations is wasted. Show us that the donors don't know what they're donating to or are unhappy about the results.