If they meet the required ad goal to continue operating, there is absolutely nothing wrong with running donation drives to avoid placing ads on the site. Why on Earth would you think that's a joke, Stickball? Both methods are perfectly acceptable ways of achieving the same goal.
As someone who is Libertarian-minded, I'd think you'd applaud their attempts to finance their operation entirely from their user base. If the need isn't there, why involve businesses? Wikipedia is a non-profit; they don't exit to make "billions", they exist to provide free information to everyone. I respect their decision to keep business and their resulting demands out of a free information-gathering website, especially since it doesn't cost anything to anyone who doesn't wish to donate. He's not "threatening" to turn it into a pay site, he's stating that they want to keep advertisers off Wikipedia.
Oh, and Sanger himself admits that Wikipedia in its current form was entirely Wales' idea. You're WAY off base on this one.
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