How much choice did customers of the Bell System have? There was nothing stopping another company from stringing wires across the country and building their ow

How much choice did customers of the Bell System have? There was nothing stopping another company from stringing wires across the country and building their own telephone network separate from the Bell System. But they don't just have to build all that infrastructure, they have to have the customers that are already under the Bell System. So they would have to pay gigantic amounts of money to people to switch, because if they didn't, there wouldn't be a value to switching for that consumer. There are a lot of analogues to these two companies. And the argument against breaking up Facebook would be similar. It's wrong that they're being punished for building something that so many people have found useful. They spent billions building the network, and now they're shattered into multiple companies because of it? It's hard to know what the right thing to do is, in terms of benefitting the public, maintaining the incentive for future new technology & infrastructure to be built, and being fair to Facebook & its employees, shareholders, and customers. There's a lot to balance out, and it doesn't seem like there will ever be a right answer. But, I find the similarity to the Bell System very striking, and I do think that it being broken up was on whole the right thing to do for the country and its citizens, which is what a government is ultimately tasked with doing.