Why divide efforts if the same forces will create the same problems?
The same way as how it’s better to distribute power among companies in a market and let them compete with each other, rather than concentrating these among a company which then will become a monopoly which the end result inevitably involves abuses of power, i.e. enshittification. If readers don’t like how a particular encyclopedia is going, they can at least vote with their feet and switch to another platform so much that the former will have to adapt to changes that could make them become appealing to readers again.
Two companies is better than one, but not by much. That’s a pretty limited amount of competition, much less than the ideal of many competitors.
And the effort duplication is huge. Do you know if a competitor could legally start by copying Wikipedia’s articles? That would make competing projects much more viable.
Do you know if a competitor could legally start by copying Wikipedia’s articles? That would make competing projects much more viable.
There’s already one which did exactly that a year ago—Justapedia. Founder is Betty Wills who is surprisingly an established contributor in Wikipedia itself. As far as I understand they’re experimenting ways that will prevent them from Wikipedia’s mistakes again, such as reformative/preventative enforcement approach and a binding commitment favoring the idea of inclusionism.
The same way as how it’s better to distribute power among companies in a market and let them compete with each other, rather than concentrating these among a company which then will become a monopoly which the end result inevitably involves abuses of power, i.e. enshittification. If readers don’t like how a particular encyclopedia is going, they can at least vote with their feet and switch to another platform so much that the former will have to adapt to changes that could make them become appealing to readers again.
Two companies is better than one, but not by much. That’s a pretty limited amount of competition, much less than the ideal of many competitors.
And the effort duplication is huge. Do you know if a competitor could legally start by copying Wikipedia’s articles? That would make competing projects much more viable.
There’s already one which did exactly that a year ago—Justapedia. Founder is Betty Wills who is surprisingly an established contributor in Wikipedia itself. As far as I understand they’re experimenting ways that will prevent them from Wikipedia’s mistakes again, such as reformative/preventative enforcement approach and a binding commitment favoring the idea of inclusionism.