Let contributors receive voluntary donations for their work

A traditional, commercial encyclopedia buys articles on a market. If a graduate student can write a good enough article on the history of Napoleon, there is no need to hire a more expensive professor to do the same job. The publishing deadline might increase the price. Wikipedia does exactly the same, with the only difference that there is no publishing deadline and the current bargaining price is zero. If it would turn out that absolutely noone would write for free in Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation might have to pay for articles being written. But so far this has not happened. The Foundation also pays very little for software development, which is largely carried out on an unpaid volunteer basis. Only a few dozen developers are salaried by the Foundation.

If you can write good articles about the history of Napoleon, or whatever, and want to get paid for your work, you should offer your services to several publishers of encyclopedias and pick the one that pays best. Wikipedia is not the only one.