AppleInsider Staff
Popular online reference website Wikipedia recently rolled out support for Apple Pay donations, enabling a fast and secure alternative to credit card and PayPal payments.
The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia's massive collection of user created and maintained articles, is largely supported by reader contributions. Anyone familiar with the website has seen or knows of the regular donation messages that pop up from time to time, asking users to give "the price of a cup of coffee" to keep its servers running.
"We're a non-profit that depends on donations to stay online and thriving, but 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way. If everyone who reads Wikipedia gave just a little, we could keep Wikipedia thriving for years to come. The price of a cup of coffee is all we ask," the donation message typically reads.
For years, Wikipedia limited donations to bank transfers or payments processed through credit card providers and PayPal, but the entity is expanding support to include other platforms like AmazonPay.
This week, Wikipedia added Apple Pay to the list of accepted payment methods. Nikolaj Hansen-Turton spotted the new option on Tuesday and shared a screenshot of the Apple Pay donation button to Twitter. The feature appears to rolling out to users around the world as it is not yet enabled in certain locations.
9to5Mac reported on Hansen-Turton's tweet earlier today.
In March, the Wikimedia Foundation was said to be in talks with big tech companies over the potential monetization of content pulled from Wikipedia and used on platforms like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa.
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12 Comments
I will never donate to Wikipedia again— too biased and unreliable.
Wikipedia has an article on the “reliability of Wikipedia.” There have been numerous studies on this question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
I find Wikipedia to be an excellent starting point for knowledge on a topic. It encourages wide reading through its links. Topics are now better organised into subject areas. I will often give references to Wikipedia in my teaching. Wikipedia is an incredible resource, it is comprehensive, and dwarfs all other encyclopaedias, plus it is being translated into many languages. Of course, it is a work-in-progress. I'm eternally grateful to all those editors who volunteer their time, knowledge, and effort.
While I respect differing opinions, I do choose to donate to Wikipedia each year. It’s a service that I use daily — for work and personal life — and want it to continue.