It’s usually nonsense. I remember some carbon offsets being a guy owning a forest and essentially selling his inaction as a carbon offset. Give me a million dollars so I don’t chop all those trees down which I totally would’ve done otherwise. It’s just pushing numbers around on a spreadsheet.

In this case I can imagine their calculations being wildly off. How much CO2/methane does a ton of poop actually release? How much CO2 is released to transport that ton and build the facilities that hold it?

Microsoft burying the steaming pile of poop that is teams will be enough to “offset” all their data centers.

But the donations are only necessary because of inflated salaries. It’s like saying we have to pay this pastry chef because the pastry chef loves to eat their own cake. They’re just feeding themselves.

The cost of server infrastructure is comparatively tiny so if they’d run it lean it’d have enough cash to last ages already. Also posting a banner on their site with massive reach isn’t exactly rocket surgery.

I know there are worse things but I strongly dislike nonprofits wasting donation money.

on the one hand they make some valid points on the other hand it’s a little disgusting how much wikipedia execs get payed and how sweaty they get when they worry about having to pay content moderators. currently they just pocket most of the donations they get but with increased running costs that would get harder.

don’t get me wrong, wikipedia is an important project and they deserve fair compensation but grabbing $700k per year for managing it seems a bit steep eh? it’s not like they’re forging new business strategies and conquering markets. they have a very simple concept and just keep it running. a post it note on the ceo door with “keep going lads” on it might outperform them and save some money.

But a consistent amount of enshittification shocks

I think the proper term is enshittification sharts