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They always have. The Edison Company used its patent portfolio to keep people away from owning theaters and importing European films. Paramount, MGM, etc, wer
by warfangle 15y ago
They always have.
The Edison Company used its patent portfolio to keep people away from owning theaters and importing European films.
Paramount, MGM, etc, were considered independents back then and fought back furiously. Then they consolidated vertically to own the theaters as well as the production, which opened the pathways for censorship (the Production Code) - when you only have to influence two or three companies, it's easier to get your way when you threaten a flat-out religious boycott.
NBC killed FM radio in the 30s by way of the FCC: it only came into its own in the late 70s.
NBC killed TV in the 30s by way of the FCC: it only came into its own after the technology had advanced enough that NBC and the other big radio players could continue their vertical monopolies in the new space.
Bell Labs killed a nascent answering machine in the 30's - of course, back then, it was the size of a refrigerator. It used magnetic recording. The next people to use magnetic recording was 3M decades later.
To cover this stuff in depth, read Tim Wu's "The Master Switch."
- dantheman 15y agoIIRC Bell Labs killed their own invention, I think that's fundamentally different than the other cases.
- iwwr 15y agoThe FCC delayed cell phone technology by at least 2 decades. AT&T delayed computer networks (pre-internet) by insisting on owning every device that connects to it, so modems had to use slow acoustic couplers.
- warfangle 15y agoTrue, it didn't fit the rest of the list. They did do a heckuva lot to keep people from competing with them - and to prevent better technologies from coming along (as otherwise mentioned, acoustic couplers. fax machines also fit in there). Bell also had a nasty habit of - when forced to compete by the government - physically sabotaging interconnect points.
- dantheman 15y agoAgreed, I was just pointing out the difference -- I was in no way defending what they did.
- kens 15y agoIf you're at all interested in this area, I strongly second warfangle's recommendation to read "The Master Switch". It gives a very interesting historical perspective on corporate control, and is one of my favorite books of last year.
- sabat 15y agoI think that the difference may be that they have bigger tools and more power than they did in the past. That's what's scary.