I'm pretty sympathetic to both sides of this. I don't really know the history well enough to say whether you're right that breaking up AT&T "helped lead to the modern internet". But even stipulating that it did, the loss of monopoly era Bell Labs was tragic.
Both things can be true! It's entirely possible (probable even) that breaking up monopolies has both positive and negative impact.
And I would be a lot more sympathetic if we had a lot more public investment in technology. But we don't. What I see is both public and private research investment under major attack. I think that's a recipe for disaster.
Both things can be true! It's entirely possible (probable even) that breaking up monopolies has both positive and negative impact.
And I would be a lot more sympathetic if we had a lot more public investment in technology. But we don't. What I see is both public and private research investment under major attack. I think that's a recipe for disaster.