Forbes stated that Wikimedia could bring in over 30 million this year while rates in editing are declining. Besides that being very odd, could that be exactly what they want?

When Wikipedia was popular, people were using it for free. There was a lot of anarchy and little overall control. There were some groups that managed to dominate various areas, but there were just too many people for overall regulation of the community.

Now, if those same people stick through it as the bulk of people leave, they can exert more and more proportional control. Then they use that to get high end donors and who knows what could happen.



The result could very easily be a small community with a lot of content and power, no real creative aspects but with the ability to push POV quite easily. Looking at the Akin situation makes it seem that Wikipedia could easily be used to attack others. That would bring in donations, and the donations could be used to pay off the ever increasing staff.

Thus, Wikipedia could easily become the replacement to the HuffingtonPost or similar sites.