"I have always liked the idea of going to print because a big part of what we are about is to disseminate knowledge throughout the world and not just to people who have broadband"
About this Quote
Wales is pitching print not as nostalgia but as infrastructure. The line sounds almost quaint in a Silicon Valley mouth, yet that’s the point: it flips the usual tech-gospel assumption that “the world” already lives online. Wikipedia built its legitimacy on radical access, and here Wales is reminding you that access is physical before it’s philosophical. Broadband is a gatekeeper; paper is a workaround.
The intent is strategic as much as idealistic. By framing print as “disseminat[ing] knowledge,” he borrows the moral language that has always protected Wikipedia from being treated like just another website. It’s a soft rebuttal to critics who see the project as a playground for the wired and the literate. “Not just to people who have broadband” is a tidy indictment of the digital divide, but it also functions as brand management: Wikipedia isn’t merely competing in the attention economy; it’s claiming a public-service mandate.
The subtext is that the internet’s promise of universal reach was always conditional, tethered to cables, carriers, censorship, electricity, and cost. Print becomes a symbol of durability and sovereignty: something that can travel to classrooms without stable connections, survive political throttling, sit on a shelf when servers go dark. In the mid-2000s era of Wikipedia’s explosive growth, this was also a credibility play. A printed Wikipedia isn’t practical as a complete mirror of a living encyclopedia, but it’s rhetorically powerful: a declaration that knowledge shouldn’t require a subscription, a device, or permission.
The intent is strategic as much as idealistic. By framing print as “disseminat[ing] knowledge,” he borrows the moral language that has always protected Wikipedia from being treated like just another website. It’s a soft rebuttal to critics who see the project as a playground for the wired and the literate. “Not just to people who have broadband” is a tidy indictment of the digital divide, but it also functions as brand management: Wikipedia isn’t merely competing in the attention economy; it’s claiming a public-service mandate.
The subtext is that the internet’s promise of universal reach was always conditional, tethered to cables, carriers, censorship, electricity, and cost. Print becomes a symbol of durability and sovereignty: something that can travel to classrooms without stable connections, survive political throttling, sit on a shelf when servers go dark. In the mid-2000s era of Wikipedia’s explosive growth, this was also a credibility play. A printed Wikipedia isn’t practical as a complete mirror of a living encyclopedia, but it’s rhetorically powerful: a declaration that knowledge shouldn’t require a subscription, a device, or permission.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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