Is Wikipedia outcompeting traditional knowledge aggregators?

Concededly, the word "outcompete" sounds weird in that context. Wikipedia is for free, offers knowledge for not a dime of costs, whereas traditional, printed knowledge can be pricey, just think of hard-cover encyclopaedias our parents may have on their chimney piece. But as more and more people are turning to Wikipedia, publishers of traditional encyclopaedias face dwindling numbers of sales. Instead of buying costly knowledge that has run through the hands of scholars and experts, been proven and aggregated to encyclopaedias encompassing twenty or more volumes, people seem to trust the shared knowledge and the collective intelligence that Wikipedia, the Wiktionary, WikiHow, WikiSchool or WikiVoyage embody. As Clay Shirky states, we are experiencing a shift from the "Why publish this?" to the "Why not?". Obviously, this applies both to the new developments in online journslism as well as to generating knowledge. According to Shirky, the professionalism of a select few is gradually being replaced by a new form of mass amateurism.

Julian Ebert