Slate Money Podcast: The "This Should Be Free" Edition

Date: March 9, 2019
Host: Felix Salmon (Axios)
Co-hosts: Emily Peck (Huffington Post), Anna Szymanski
Guest: Katherine Maher (then Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation)

Episode Overview

This episode explores the value of open and free information, the business models that challenge or enable this vision, and the current battles that define the economics of knowledge. The hosts and guest Katherine Maher, of the Wikimedia Foundation, dive into Wikipedia's global impact, accessibility, and funding, examine the controversial paywalls of scholarly publishers like Elsevier, and close with an analysis of Facebook's proposed "pivot to privacy"—all through the lens of whether essential information should be freely available.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wikipedia: Transforming the Information Economy

[00:45–14:59]

• Wikipedia’s Mission and Design

  • Felix outlines Wikipedia as the "free" archetype, in contrast to advertising-supported media [00:00].
  • Katherine Maher explains the deliberate simplicity of Wikipedia’s design for global accessibility:

    “Not everybody, as we just said, has access to a high-quality Internet connection. And so Wikipedia is really fast, no matter where you are in the world.” [03:33]

  • Even as the English version matures, other languages continue to expand, including surprise growth in Swedish, German, and emerging-market languages [04:01].

• Global Representation & Access

  • Issues of representation: disproportionate contributions from Europe/North America vs. underrepresentation from Africa [04:29].
  • Maher:

    “Less than 2% of African contributors come from the entire African continent. So there’s clearly just huge swaths of the world that are missing.” [04:40]

  • Wikipedia is addressing the knowledge gap by engaging communities without written traditions and figuring out how to value and validate oral traditions [06:39].

• Recruitment and Diversity of Editors

  • Balancing outreach with ease of contribution: women and people from emerging markets are more engaged when invited to social, in-person editing events [08:28].

    “The number one way to engage women editors is to actually invite them into social spaces to learn how to edit.” [09:17]

  • Privacy is fundamental: Wikimedia collects minimal demographic data due to privacy policies [10:03].

• Reliability and Use in Journalism

  • Anecdotes on journalists’ “love/hate” relationship—many use Wikipedia as a reference but hesitate to cite/credit it publicly [11:10].
  • Maher on Wikipedia’s evolving accuracy:

    “Every time someone says, you know, that Wikipedia is a source of truth, I’m like, no, we’re a source of consensus, source of what is understood right now based on who can participate.” [12:32]

• Why Not Allow Ads on Wikipedia?

  • Maher emphasizes the choice for a donation-supported model:

    “We just don’t believe that knowledge should be commoditized in that way…there should be a space for free information on the web and that that information should be supported by the same people who use it.” [13:59]

  • 7 million donors yearly contribute, with Maher noting the parallels to a public library [14:59].

2. The Elsevier Controversy: Paywalls vs. Public Good

[14:59–24:30]

• The UC-Elsevier Stand-off

  • University of California system dropped Elsevier due to skyrocketing costs—Elsevier’s profit margins are 37% [15:37].
  • Critique: research is taxpayer-funded, yet the public (and even authors) often cannot access it without paying exorbitant fees [16:11].

• Movements Toward Open Access

  • Emily Peck: “There’s a growing movement that says, you know, this information should be open source. And UC as sort of the biggest university system to fight back and say, enough’s enough…” [16:39]
  • Maher ties open science to Wikipedia’s effectiveness:

    “When an article about a scientific concept is in an open access journal, it is more likely to be understood by the general public. It’s also more likely to be in Wikipedia and represented effectively in Wikipedia.” [18:00]

  • The closed-access system disadvantages global scientific collaboration:

    “I read the staggering statistic that the US taxpayers pay about $140 billion a year in subsidizing research that they don’t have access to.” [19:46]

• Sci-Hub, Piracy, and Systemic Change

  • The hosts debate whether illegal repositories like Sci-Hub might force publishers to adapt their business models, comparing to the evolution of the music industry [22:28].
  • Maher:

    “If you’re looking at paying 40, $100 per article…the competitive access is not the same as paying a dollar on iTunes. There’s a market solution here potentially, but the publishing industry isn’t willing to engage.” [22:28]

• Journalism Paywalls vs. Scholarly Paywalls

  • Hosts note that journalism’s move to paywalls is more justified (compensating creators directly), unlike profit-driven academic publishing where the work and peer review are mostly unpaid [23:45].

• Ongoing Exclusions and Human Impact

  • Wikipedia is blocked in Turkey and China for refusing to censor content [36:24].
  • Maher:

    “We are not currently available in Turkey. It is one of two countries in which you cannot access Wikipedia. We have been blocked since April of 2017.” [36:24]

3. Facebook’s "Pivot to Privacy" and the New Crypto Wars

[24:30–33:34]

• Zuckerberg’s Privacy Manifesto

  • Discussion of Facebook’s big announcement to “pivot to privacy,” bolstered by a lengthy blog post promising end-to-end encryption and more ephemeral communication [24:30].

• Motivations and Regulatory Context

  • Anna highlights the incongruity:

    “Up until the day before Facebook’s whole thing is like we’re connecting the world, we’re making the world more open. And you’re like, now they’re wait about that.” [25:55]

  • The crew connects this shift to Facebook’s strategic response to impending antitrust initiatives, especially proposals to break up Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp (citing Elizabeth Warren’s policy proposals) [26:26].

• Privacy, Security, and Social Harm

  • Emily and Katherine discuss the dilemma: while chat encryption protects privacy, it potentially aids bad actors ("crypto wars" redux).

    “My first response was, well, that puts a huge target on encryption again, it raises the specter of the crypto wars all over again…” [27:41]

  • Emily: “On WhatsApp, a lot of bad stuff kind of happens behind these encrypted walls…like fake news and other bad, bad stuff.” [28:45]

• The Dilemma of Platform Power

  • Felix:

    “It seems to me…if we end-to-end encrypt everything, we just won’t know what people are saying to each other. So it’s not our problem anymore.” [29:20]

  • Anna underscores the endless tension between privacy and misuse:

    “This is one of those issues that we are simply never going to solve…It is always going to be moving back and forth between the desire for people to have more privacy and then the fact that when you give people more privacy, some people are going to use that to do very bad things…” [30:00]

• Business Model Reality

  • Katherine:

    “You can’t and won’t actually genuinely have privacy on Facebook because the entire Facebook business model is based on Facebook knowing exactly who you are…” [32:01]

  • Even after leaving Facebook, user data still powers ad targeting:

    “Most companies send you out those reminder emails like, hey, we miss you, Katherine, come back. I haven’t gotten a single reminder email from Facebook to sign back in because they don’t need me to.” [32:23]

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Felix on the journalist double standard:

  “Any journalist who says they don’t use Wikipedia as a resource is lying. They all do.” [11:18]

• Katherine Maher, on Wikipedia’s ideal:

  “We just don’t believe that knowledge should be commoditized in that way…there should be a space for free information on the web…” [13:59]

• Anna, on Elsevier:

  “They don’t pay the people who do the peer review. They don’t pay the people who are writing the articles. They essentially are just, you know, if any, bundling things, which is not even how people consume knowledge anymore.” [17:01]

• Katherine Maher, on Sci-Hub vs. Academic Publishing:

  “There’s a market solution here potentially, but the publishing industry isn’t willing to engage. They’re [sitting on a] 37% profit margin.” [22:28]

• Emily, on Facebook "quitting":

  “The number of people I know who are very proudly patting themselves on the back for quitting Facebook and they’re still on Instagram every day. Yeah, this is cognitive disconnect there.” [32:38]

Notable Numbers Round [33:48–39:58]

• Emily: Only 30% of Republican women see gender discrimination as a serious problem (vs. 74% of Democratic women) [33:48]
• Katherine Maher: “27” – Number of female journalists imprisoned worldwide; 8% of the total is an increase from 3% five years ago [35:34]
• Anna: “2.5 Million” – The number of Wikipedia edits by Steven Pruitt, a record among English-language editors [37:08]
• Felix: “$911 Million” – Lyft’s 2018 reported losses ahead of their IPO [38:50]

Additional Highlights

• Wikipedia Blocked in Turkey & China:
  Wikipedia’s refusal to censor political content led to government bans [36:24].
• Wikipedia Editing Culture:
  Anna shares the story of prolific editor Steven Pruitt. Maher notes many high-volume editors use bots and systematic tools [37:24].
• Minotaurs:
  Felix coins "Minotaurs" for firms that have raised $1B+ in equity (distinct from unicorns = $1B valuation) [38:57].

Important Timestamps

• 00:45: Episode theme, introductions
• 03:33: Wikipedia’s user experience strategy
• 04:29: Representation disparities among Wikipedia editors
• 06:39: Integrating oral traditions and diverse epistemologies
• 09:17: Onboarding more women editors
• 12:32: Wikipedia as consensus, not immutable truth
• 13:59: Why Wikipedia stays ad-free
• 15:13: The UC-Elsevier split and the cost of paywalled research
• 18:00: Open access research and Wikipedia’s public impact
• 22:28: Sci-Hub, piracy, and academic publishing economics
• 24:30: Discussion pivots to Facebook and privacy
• 27:41: How encryption reignites the “crypto wars”
• 32:23: Facebook’s data reach, even for quitters
• 33:48–39:58: Numbers round: Gender, journalism, Wikipedia stats, and Lyft losses

Closing Tone

Throughout, the conversation is irreverent, sharp, and insightful—true to Slate Money's style. The hosts and Maher mix deep policy analysis, real-life anecdotes, and a sense of humor, never losing sight of their central question: What’s the true cost—and value—of making essential information free for all?

For Further Listening

More on Wikipedia’s use by for-profit companies is teased for the following Slate Plus bonus segment. Kathryn Maher is also highlighted as guest on an upcoming "Slate Money Travel" episode.

Episode Summary by Slate Money Podcast Summarizer (2024)