The sad thing is that Bell Monopoly 1.0 could at least have been seen somewhat benign by comparison. Ma Bell's network was a remarkable feat of reliable engine

The sad thing is that Bell Monopoly 1.0 could at least have been seen somewhat benign by comparison. Ma Bell's network was a remarkable feat of reliable engineering. They provided generations of high-quality unionized jobs and bankrolled the sort of green-field research you can only afford to do when you know you've got a well-protected revenue stream. I wonder what things would have been like if we had chosen regulation or even nationalization rather than sharding the business. If nothing else, we would have been spared decades of inane commercials for competing long-distance providers.