Every year, hell, sometimes every six months or even more often, various “free” entities are in campaign mode, asking for money. They want the support of all those that use their service.

Offending Entities

Public radio is famous for this tactic. They used to have a once a year campaign for a few weeks and then you wouldn’t hear them whine until next year. Now, it seems like every few months I hear them asking for dollars. “For a certain size donation, we’ll send you a free coffee cup.” Whoopie, like I need more junk laying around the house.

The Kahn Academy is another one I continue to get pleas from. I wanted to know about a certain subject and opted-in to some of their classes. I don’t even remember what it was I wanted to know at the time. Now it seems like every week I get an email asking for a donation.

Now Wikipedia is harassing me.

Hundreds, probably thousands of writers and editors contribute, on a voluntary basis, to the site every day. They put their research and knowledge on the line. Whether their writers are accurate or not I have no way of knowing without doing a lot of reading on the subject of interest myself. You tend to trust them, anyway. Since I am not doing any scholastic research but only want to satisfy my curiosity the information is great. Heck, the information is free, isn’t it?

My Rant

The last time I opened the site I got a message that told me that I used the site quite a lot and that 9 times I ignored their plea. Maybe the donation I gave them a few weeks ago was exhausted. Am I required to continue to pump my earnings into their coffers?

Sure, I only sent them $10.00. All they asked for was $3.00 from each user. I think I did my part, at least for a while.

I’ll admit that I use some of these frequently; Wikipedia especially. But I didn’t ask them to create their “free” site. I know it takes a lot of money to operate a site like Wikipedia. But they volunteered to create and promote a free program. If they wanted the site to pay for itself, maybe they should charge for it. It doesn’t need to be extravagant, maybe $2.00 bucks a month or some such fee. I don’t think I would use it any less.

Will I discontinue use of their ‘free’ information? I guess if they aren’t able to survive without my donation, I will have to. Maybe I should pay for the service. Every time I want to know about something, I always go to Wikipedia. But if they continue to offer their service for free, I’m all over it.

It seems like when you feel generous and contribute to whomever, they try to take advantage of you at every turn. Am I whining? Shouldn’t I put on my big-boy pants and just get over it. Maybe so, but this last plea ticked me off.

And that’s the way I roll.