In both, ATT essentially traded government blessing of monopoly in core markets (long distance telecommunications) for agreeing not to expand into other markets (e.g. Western Union money transfers and telecom equipment).
And side point, ATT R&D (~1910 to 1925, later named Bell Labs) was originally funded after the company almost imploded due to short-sighted profit maximization at the expense of customer satisfaction / service quality.
I think it's interesting to imagine what a Google-thats-only-search or a Meta-thats-only-social look like, similarly plowing their profits into independent research labs, but without funneling them throughout the for-profit octopus conglomerates they are now.
1956 Consent Decree https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust...
In both, ATT essentially traded government blessing of monopoly in core markets (long distance telecommunications) for agreeing not to expand into other markets (e.g. Western Union money transfers and telecom equipment).
And side point, ATT R&D (~1910 to 1925, later named Bell Labs) was originally funded after the company almost imploded due to short-sighted profit maximization at the expense of customer satisfaction / service quality.
I think it's interesting to imagine what a Google-thats-only-search or a Meta-thats-only-social look like, similarly plowing their profits into independent research labs, but without funneling them throughout the for-profit octopus conglomerates they are now.