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Comment by craftyguy | Hacker News Reader

Ma Bell 2.0

As of 2016 this is a diagram showing what went where and how it's back together now: https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner...

>f you thought music streaming exclusives were bad, just wait until Comcast starts windowing SNL sketches to keep people on its pipes while AT&T only streams CNN to AT&T phones, while Verizon keeps wielding mobile access to NFL games like a club against the American consumer.

Such an anti-consumer dystopia :( It is truly sad to see these markets devolve into such terribleness when there is so much possibility to be had with such incredible technology.

I'm optimistic about it. The more onerous and costly it becomes, hopefully the more people will become disinterested with the mass produced garbage and start unplugging themselves.

Wow, with this deal it's even more consolidated than before the breakup.

not exactly the best example when you consider what their research arm bell labs gave us.

Not saying that monopolies are good, it's just not black and white...

Even a steaming pile of shit has one or two good qualities.

A comment like this makes me think you really don't know much about Bell Labs.

http://blog.tmcnet.com/next-generation-communications/2011/0...

A lot of modern computing traces back to them and Xerox.

I know about Bell Labs and their contributions. They were the one positive thing from Ma Bell, but there were a LOT of other bad things in Ma Bell that I'd rather not see come about again. I bet we can have a Bell Labs-like thing exist without all the other crap.

I'd love to see it. Where is this fabled research giant that doesn't need a bunch of funding from a giant corporation?

I mean, I guess you could look at DARPA or other government agencies as some sort of equivalent, but you're not exactly escaping controversy by getting your funding from the DoD...

Lucent. (Ugh... Rode that sucker down to $0)

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