_s10e , 11 months ago

Just a showerthought:

Maybe that’s part of a much bigger generational divide. Maybe Wikipedia is one of the last bastions of the old pre-commercialization internet. “From the people for the people”, but actually from people whose hobby it is to spend time in front of a computer screen.

BBS systems, usenet, forums, early websites, slashdot, open source, Wikipedia, early reddit, …

in contrast to: ConpuServe, AOL, Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon, Tiktok

Editing early Wikipedia waa easy, fun, and meant something. You freed information from behind a paywall. Free as in speech.

Now, everything is free as in beer (“some restrictions apply”) and editing a wiki is no longer easy when you grew up swiping an iphone, not hacking a unix terminal. This, plus admin culture.