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COLBERT: I suppose fear is like a drug. A little bit isn’t that bad, but you can get addicted to the consumption and distribution of it. What’s evil is the purposeful distribution of fear. As Paul said when he was faced with the gom jabbar, “Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.”

PLAYBOY: Did you just make a Dune reference?

COLBERT: I did! [laughs] If you’re injecting fear into other people, then you’re trying to kill their minds. You’re trying to get them to stop thinking. That’s antithetical to the founding of this country. It’s on the Jefferson Memorial. I’m stealing this from Jefferson, but I’m also stealing it from the movie Born Yesterday. Bill Holden takes Judy Holliday to the Jefferson Memorial, and they read the inscription together. “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Fear is an attempt to impose tyranny over someone’s mind. It’s an act of oppression.

We believe the future is fully digital, and the future is now. And yet experimenting with new digital models not based on advertising at a scale that matter have not been successful. Entrenched players spend hundreds of millions to maintain their regulatory moats and leverage their concentrated distribution power. In Canada, just three publishing groups own 54% of newspapers. If allowed to merge, Universal and EMI would control 51 of 2011’s Billboard Hot 100 songs. Six Hollywood studios account for well over 3/4 of the market. AT&T and Verizon alone have over 440,000 employees. Predictably, the FCC remains the poster child of regulatory capture.

The un-digital camp is far from relinquishing their power. Models that can replace them aren’t here. Advertising online has been corruptive of user privacy and editorial integrity. I’m afraid it’ll be a miracle if the shouting subsides anytime soon.