As the late Sen. Everett Dirksen famously observed, "a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money." And to show for it, what? Merely the knowledge that if you give away something useful for free, lots and lots of people will take you up on the offer.

Donald -- Congratulations on another super strong week, profile-raising-wise! You're out there saying the things only you have the courage to say. But I wonder if we're not getting off track a bit strategically.

One of the cleverer gambits to avert the utter collapse of the media economy is the experiment by Google called Contributor. It enables users to block ads on their favorite Web sites by instead paying small sums a la carte for the content. And it does so with the ultimate nod to the free market... with maybe just a hint of the black one.