I read the perfect response about Wikipedia vs. Britannica in a discussion post from Cory Doctorow on a story published in the Edge titled: Digial Maoism: The hazards of the new online collectivism, by Jaron Lanier. Mr. Doctorow's post:
"Wikipedia isn't great because it's like the Britannica. The Britannica is great at being authoritative, edited, expensive, and monolithic. Wikipedia is great at being free, brawling, universal, and instantaneous.
— Cory Doctorow"
You can read the full story here: http://edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html
I saw the story thanks to an entry in BoingBoing http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/10/responses_to_jaron_l.html