The basic concept here is given the ongoing dramatic drop in the price of bandwidth and hardware, they cost very little. I looked at the bandwidth bill for Wikipedia, for instance, and it is actually substantially lower in the last year than the year before, despite traffic growing by a factor of 4.
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Will that mean that those fund raising events at Wikipedia will also have less requirements? (less money asked, that is) ;-)
David,
I don't think they've every asked for any particular amount.
People just give. Nearly $1M this last time!
I believe they have a certain goal, when money is being asked for. It is set on the bar that slowly --or fast-- fill up with donations.
What would it happen if donations do not reach the set goal? I do not know. The World is fully of philanthropic or otherwise kind people.
The first time or two, they set the bar small and re-scaled it when the donation got close to full.