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   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 27-Oct-2025 18:07:16 JST Aral Balkan

   So there’s a new Guardian interview with Jimmy Wales out (to promote his new book, with an affiliate link for the Guardian in it) titled “‘People thought I was a communist doing this as a non-profit’: is Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales the last decent tech baron?”*

   For those who only read the headlines, here’s a TL;DR: No. There is no such thing as decent tech baron.

   From the article itself:

   for those who only read the headlines. From the article:

   “‘I’m actually quite in favour of business and capitalism and all that.’ (He’s currently president of Fandom, an ad-funded entertainment site that hosts user-edited pages, owned by private equity firm TPG Capital).”

   And:

   “Does he still regard Musk, the world’s richest man, as a friend? ‘Friends is probably a little strong. I mean, not, not that –‘ he sputters, editing himself in real time. ‘I want to be careful how I say that, only because I’ve met him maybe five or six times, so that I would be overstating to say friends. We’ve been friendly, and even now he’s much nicer to me in private than you might think. I mean, he’s got a big public persona, and that’s a little bit different from the private Elon, who I think is more thoughtful.’”

   Also, some@more background:

   https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/115445244962527420

   #JimmyWales #wikipedia #theGuardian #bookPromotion #capitalism #ElonMusk #adTech #zeroRating #Facebook #Meta #surveillanceCapitalism #regulation

   * https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/27/people-thought-i-was-a-communist-doing-this-as-a-non-profit-is-wikipedias-jimmy-wales-the-last-decent-tech-baron

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Monday, 27-Oct-2025 18:11:15 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Jack Yan (甄爵恩)

     @jackyan ‘Nuff said.

   • Embed this notice
     Jack Yan (甄爵恩) (jackyan@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Oct-2025 18:11:16 JST Jack Yan (甄爵恩)

     in reply to

     @aral I mainly remember him as the dude who ran Bomis.

   • Embed this notice
     Archie (archesofscratch73@zirk.us)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Feb-2026 02:09:10 JST Archie

     in reply to

     From what I gather, most of the big wikis on Fandom are trying to leave because it's so filled with ads. Apparently the process is difficult, and compounded by the fact that Fandom refuses to delete content after a wiki has moved somewhere else. Which means they keep the higher SEO rating to keep driving clicks to ad-riddled pages that are out of date or full of vandalised garbage.
     @aral

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Feb-2026 10:55:56 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Archie

     @archesofscratch73 Sounds about par for the course.