I would much prefer the Wikipedia endowment model of non-profit orgs. They have a standard operating procedure with a predictable budget, and endowment that let's them run indefinitely, and we just have to suffer through pledge drives. I just block them with ublock filters. I gave them 6 dollars back in 2012, and according to their marketing that is enough for life.
No. They are meant to manipulate me personally, as well as other persons I care about. I will take them personally.
More broadly, I don't have to excuse bad behavior just because somebody's making money off it or because it makes some too-narrow metric go up. Yes, it's a complex and imperfect world. But to me that's a reason to work harder to make things better, not a reason for people to say, "fuck it" and make the world worse.
This, absolutely! they play on people's psyche and mental cabling by trying to guilt you in the same way your parent would ; it's manipulative, and I have an absolute hatred for these tactics.
This is different than what is currently going on with venture backed services like reddit and youtube. I would argue that we should block ads there too, but there it is an arms race where we have to consider ways to protect ourselves from encroaching privacy violations. It's much ruder, and that is something we should actually be mad at.
I don't take them personally, of course, but they do encourage me to avoid forking over any money.
I just put my money toward people who don't do that crap, and I want the manipulators to see that I'm giving money to their non-manipulating competitors.
It's still shitty, even if it's a shitty "standard practice" and not a shitty thing being done to me particularly.
Honestly, it seems like Wikipedia's goodwill is seen as an exploitable resource, that people in Wikimedia are using to do other, unnecessary things (probably building little personal fiefdoms).
Sort of like Mozilla, actually. IIRC, they literally won't let you give them money to fund Firefox development, and any donations you give them go to fiefdoms almost certainty entirely unrelated to why you gave them money.
They don't know you; they don't know me. I'm a nobody, just like you.
Parental manipulation works because it's completely reasonable given the relationship for it to be effective. It's a betrayal of trust.
If a company tries that tactic and it "works" too well, that's an opportunity to evaluate your psyche, not get mad at them.
Wikimedia? No, they're a money black hole and will eat whatever you give them.
Edit: check out https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Krispy_Kreme XD