Sure, everybody can access Wikipedia for free. But if you pay them money, you can get better access. That seems to be the message of this post. "The new product will standardize our data feeds for faster, more effective updates and make our content more easily machine-readable for a fee to customers who chose to use it." They argue, "what many of the largest commercial technology organizations require in order to effectively utilize Wikimedia content goes beyond what we currently provide." I also get the feeling they're trying to walk a fine line. It's true that if you offer a free service to commercial enterprises, they'll never be satisfied with that, but will keep asking for more. They're trying to address this while ensuring that Wikipedia remains free for everyone. But how long will it be before the commercial offerings - like the Wikipedia boxes in search engine results pages - are the only way we can access Wikipedia?
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