1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:03,360 Speaker 1: Be honest when you're doing any kind of writing that 2 00:00:03,440 --> 00:00:06,440 Speaker 1: needs a little bit of stunt brain added in what's 3 00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:10,760 Speaker 1: your first stop? No doubt it's Wikipedia. It's actually hard 4 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,640 Speaker 1: to imagine the Internet without it, but close to twenty 5 00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:17,480 Speaker 1: years ago it nearly went extinct. I'm Patty Steele when 6 00:00:17,480 --> 00:00:21,360 Speaker 1: the place we turned to for all human knowledge almost 7 00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:28,080 Speaker 1: had its lights turned off. That's next on the backstory. 8 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:32,560 Speaker 1: The backstory is back. First off, got to thank super 9 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:37,240 Speaker 1: backstory fan Steve Kingston for sharing this story idea Okay. 10 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:40,479 Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, as Wikipedia was getting its wings, 11 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:44,360 Speaker 1: co founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview, imagine a 12 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:47,479 Speaker 1: world in which every single person on the planet is 13 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:51,320 Speaker 1: given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. 14 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:56,000 Speaker 1: That's what we're doing. It was a monumental undertaking, particularly 15 00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:59,760 Speaker 1: because it needed billions of pieces of information to go 16 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:03,600 Speaker 1: out to billions of people for free. The mid two 17 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: thousands were actually like the dawn of the Internet as 18 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:11,240 Speaker 1: a user friendly tool for everybody, not just genius computer guys. 19 00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:16,640 Speaker 1: Google felt permanent, YouTube felt kind of inevitable. Facebook and 20 00:01:16,680 --> 00:01:21,880 Speaker 1: similar sites were becoming unavoidable still is, but Wikipedia it 21 00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:26,560 Speaker 1: felt like infrastructure, not a website actually more like a utility, 22 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:31,640 Speaker 1: similar to how folks decades ago used encyclopedias and dictionaries. Right, 23 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:34,080 Speaker 1: it was turning into a thing we put in the 24 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:38,120 Speaker 1: same category as electricity or tap water, something that would 25 00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:41,560 Speaker 1: always be there for a quick reference on pretty much anything. 26 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:46,960 Speaker 1: Now it's two thousand and seven, very quietly, Wikipedia is 27 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:51,200 Speaker 1: approaching extinction. It's not because of hackers or the government, 28 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:55,360 Speaker 1: not because of misinformation, scandals, lawsuits. It boils down to 29 00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:58,720 Speaker 1: the same old, boring thing that's killed businesses for centuries. 30 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:01,840 Speaker 1: It was running out of money and almost nobody knew 31 00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:05,639 Speaker 1: about this death knell. Here's the thing. By two thousand 32 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:08,680 Speaker 1: and seven, Wikipedia was one of the top ten most 33 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:13,080 Speaker 1: visited websites on Earth, tens of millions of articles in 34 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:17,560 Speaker 1: hundreds of languages, providing billions of bits of info, a 35 00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:21,560 Speaker 1: massive global army of volunteer editors, all working for free. 36 00:02:22,080 --> 00:02:24,840 Speaker 1: There were fifty thousand of these free editors on the 37 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:28,040 Speaker 1: English version of Wiki alone. In those days. It should 38 00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:30,960 Speaker 1: have been a success. Right, Students were using it pretty 39 00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:34,800 Speaker 1: much every day. Journalists were using it, although mostly secretly, 40 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:38,720 Speaker 1: sort of like AI today. Teachers were telling kids not 41 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:42,120 Speaker 1: to use it, but were then secretly checking it themselves. 42 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:47,040 Speaker 1: The site looked massive, unstoppable, too big to fail, but 43 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:51,480 Speaker 1: that was not the case. Problem is Wikipedia didn't sell ads, 44 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:55,519 Speaker 1: it didn't charge subscription fees, and really importantly, it didn't 45 00:02:55,560 --> 00:02:59,880 Speaker 1: harvest user data. It ran on donations and faith the 46 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:03,440 Speaker 1: folks would appreciate it enough to keep it alive. The 47 00:03:03,480 --> 00:03:09,040 Speaker 1: Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that ran Wikipedia, was shockingly tiny 48 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,800 Speaker 1: for a website handling billions of page views. We're talking 49 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:16,720 Speaker 1: about a billion page views per month. But as traffic exploded, 50 00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:20,519 Speaker 1: so to be costs. They had to worry about servers, bandwidth, 51 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:25,280 Speaker 1: storage and maintenance. Every article edit, every page load, every 52 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:29,480 Speaker 1: image view came with growing price tags and donations weren't 53 00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:33,560 Speaker 1: paying the bills. At Wikimedia, executives were just focused on 54 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,800 Speaker 1: trying to survive a few months at a time. Soon 55 00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:39,040 Speaker 1: they were afraid the lights were going to go out 56 00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:42,760 Speaker 1: in weeks. At one point they admitted to themselves that 57 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:46,600 Speaker 1: if funding didn't improve, Wikipedia might have to shut down. 58 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: We're not talking scaling back, shut down. And the weirdest 59 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: part they had no emergency plan, no big red button. 60 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:56,800 Speaker 1: They hadn't even drafted a shutdown announcement because if the 61 00:03:56,800 --> 00:04:01,000 Speaker 1: money ran out, the servers would simply stop response. You'd 62 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:03,280 Speaker 1: go to look up the story behind a favorite movie 63 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:06,120 Speaker 1: or some background on a school or work project, and 64 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:09,880 Speaker 1: nothing would be there. Pages would load slower and slower, 65 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:14,720 Speaker 1: then they'd time out. Finally they'd vanish. The world's largest 66 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:19,039 Speaker 1: encyclopedia would disappear the same way so many forgotten websites do. 67 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:24,400 Speaker 1: Think Friendster, Vine, Napster, ask jeeves, remember that one club, penguin, 68 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:27,760 Speaker 1: Pig in my House, and so many others. They all 69 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:32,679 Speaker 1: disappeared quietly, awkwardly, without closure. But how could that happen 70 00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,880 Speaker 1: to the biggest online information site on Earth. Imagine opening 71 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:39,240 Speaker 1: a browser, you search a question like you searched a 72 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:42,920 Speaker 1: thousand times before, and instead of a familiar white page 73 00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:46,440 Speaker 1: filled with blue lengths, you get nothing, No explanation, no archive, 74 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:51,119 Speaker 1: no replacement, just silence. Let's go back to Jimmy Wales again. 75 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,600 Speaker 1: He's Wikipedia's co founder. This guy understood the stakes. He 76 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:59,240 Speaker 1: knew Wikipedia wasn't just another start up, it wasn't a product. 77 00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:03,080 Speaker 1: It was true, truly a social experiment. The question was 78 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:07,479 Speaker 1: could the Internet build something massive, useful, and above all 79 00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:11,159 Speaker 1: lasting without greed at the center of it? But greed 80 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:15,080 Speaker 1: is different than survival, and now that social experiment was 81 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:18,960 Speaker 1: failing the most basic test. Figuring out a way to survive, 82 00:05:19,600 --> 00:05:23,359 Speaker 1: they thought about the traditional solutions. ADS could bring in millions. 83 00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:28,440 Speaker 1: Corporate sponsors could stabilize budgets. They could offer premium features, which, 84 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:32,400 Speaker 1: while unlocking revenue, would charge users a fee. So every 85 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:36,440 Speaker 1: option they considered felt like a betrayal of their original creed. 86 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:41,080 Speaker 1: ADS would compromise neutrality. Since sponsors liked to control info 87 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:44,839 Speaker 1: and exert some influence and paywalls, they'd lock out the 88 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:49,960 Speaker 1: very people Wikipedia existed for. If Wikipedia survived by becoming 89 00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:54,520 Speaker 1: something else, was that really surviving? Finally, Jimmy Wales made 90 00:05:54,560 --> 00:05:58,560 Speaker 1: a decision that terrified everybody on the inside. Wikipedia would 91 00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:02,680 Speaker 1: ask users directly for help, not through marketing campaigns or 92 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:07,480 Speaker 1: glossy videos or even emotional manipulation. They would simply tell 93 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:12,120 Speaker 1: the truth. Yikes, that scares anybody. So on an evening 94 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:15,520 Speaker 1: in December two thousand and seven, Wikipedia rolled out something 95 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 1: radical a banner. It wasn't a pop up, just a 96 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:22,000 Speaker 1: plain text based message at the top of the page, 97 00:06:22,440 --> 00:06:26,400 Speaker 1: no shouting or animation. It basically said Wikipedia is run 98 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:30,800 Speaker 1: by a nonprofit We depend on donations. If everyone reading 99 00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:33,760 Speaker 1: this gave just a small amount, our fundraiser would be 100 00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:37,680 Speaker 1: over in an hour. That was it, pure honesty, go 101 00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:42,760 Speaker 1: think as you can imagine. Insiders felt overwhelming anxiety. It 102 00:06:42,800 --> 00:06:45,479 Speaker 1: was a huge gamble. There was fear that users would 103 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:48,680 Speaker 1: find it annoying and lose trust, whereas yet they might 104 00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:52,600 Speaker 1: ignore it and then Wikipedia would still fail. Problem is, 105 00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:56,240 Speaker 1: once you ask for money, you can't unask. Then came 106 00:06:56,320 --> 00:06:59,880 Speaker 1: the waiting. For the first few hours, donations trickled in. 107 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:05,600 Speaker 1: The staff kept watching and obsessively refreshing numbers. Then something shifted. 108 00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:10,240 Speaker 1: Donations began to accelerate. They weren't huge. They were amounts 109 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 1: like five, ten or twenty bucks from students, from teachers, 110 00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:17,320 Speaker 1: from office workers. People who had used Wikipedia for years 111 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:20,920 Speaker 1: without ever thinking about who paid for it suddenly realized 112 00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:23,880 Speaker 1: I need to help. Why did it work? Well, think 113 00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:26,440 Speaker 1: about it. What's the one thing that makes you want 114 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:30,840 Speaker 1: to help somebody in need? It's vulnerability. The message didn't 115 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:34,120 Speaker 1: talk down to users or guilt them. It simply said 116 00:07:34,280 --> 00:07:38,000 Speaker 1: this service exists because people like you care, and if 117 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:43,920 Speaker 1: people stopped caring, it disappears. That was new. Wikipedia felt human, fragile. 118 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,600 Speaker 1: It didn't belong to shareholders. It belonged to everybody, and 119 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:51,280 Speaker 1: people really responded to that honest request for help. As 120 00:07:51,320 --> 00:07:55,000 Speaker 1: donations poured in, panic turned into hope and then relief. 121 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:59,960 Speaker 1: In the end, millions of dollars were raised. Wikipedia was validated. 122 00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:04,280 Speaker 1: The experiment worked because they trusted their users. As you 123 00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:08,440 Speaker 1: probably know, that banner still appears every year, the same 124 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:12,320 Speaker 1: plane message, the same quiet plea. Honestly, a lot of 125 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:16,560 Speaker 1: folks scroll past it, but a lot donate. Wikipedia still 126 00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:19,440 Speaker 1: runs on a thin margin, and every year they try 127 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:22,600 Speaker 1: to gently remind us that it can disappear, not with 128 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:27,360 Speaker 1: a bang or a big explosive announcement, just gone. Few 129 00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,640 Speaker 1: of us know what's really behind the banner. With the founders, though, 130 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:34,440 Speaker 1: it's the maintenance of a miracle. The scariest part isn't 131 00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:37,920 Speaker 1: that Wikipedia almost died. It's that we wouldn't have noticed 132 00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:41,720 Speaker 1: until it was gone again. Thanks to super fan Steve 133 00:08:41,840 --> 00:08:45,079 Speaker 1: Kingston for tipping me off about this story. Hope you'll 134 00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:48,240 Speaker 1: like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review, 135 00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:50,839 Speaker 1: and I'd love it if you'd subscribe or follow for 136 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:55,080 Speaker 1: free to get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel free 137 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:57,040 Speaker 1: to dm me if you have a story like Steve 138 00:08:57,120 --> 00:08:59,600 Speaker 1: did that you'd like me to cover. On Facebook It's 139 00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:13,240 Speaker 1: Patty's and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. 140 00:09:13,520 --> 00:09:17,760 Speaker 1: The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis 141 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:22,040 Speaker 1: Durant Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. 142 00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:25,920 Speaker 1: Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday 143 00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:28,440 Speaker 1: and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with 144 00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:32,480 Speaker 1: comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty 145 00:09:32,559 --> 00:09:36,000 Speaker 1: Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening 146 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:39,280 Speaker 1: to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history 147 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:41,160 Speaker 1: you didn't know you needed to know.