Libraries, Gentrification, and Amazon's Crowd-Sourcing Evil

[Jim Lane]

3. Amazon and Wikipedia are significantly different.

You write:

The main point is struggling authors who just want to publish their work naively end up providing free content for Amazon, just like all those people who "crowd-sourced" Wikipedia gave their efforts for the greater glory of Jimmy Wales all those years ago.

The difference is easy to state. Amazon is a for-profit company that generates money for its owners. Wikipedia is a project of a nonprofit foundation. As with any nonprofit, people (starting with Wales) contribute their time and money because they believe in the organization's goals.

Amazon sells stuff (and, as you point out, further monetizes its content through advertising). Wikipedia gives stuff away. It has no ads, no registration fee, no subscription charges.

Wikipedia has a policy of "no original research", meaning that content in the encyclopedia must be based on reliable sources. You raise a very valid concern about what Amazon is doing to the continued creation of those reliable sources -- but Wikipedia is not displacing the traditional paternal publishers.