I’d differ in part about AT&T. Whatever else it brought us as monopoly, quality was high among those things. I watched proud American telecom decay over decades into yet another made-in-China commodity whose agents can’t even help a guy pay his phone bill without bringing in a copy of it. For shame. Genericizing Amazon will do the same.
“I’d differ in part about AT&T. Whatever else it brought us as monopoly, quality was high among those things.”
That is absolutely untrue today. AT&T is ripping off their customers while providing poor-quality service. Unfortunately, as a monopoly most places, the get away with it. In the 1980’s Judge Harold Greene broke up AT&T. It has taken all the intervening years, but AT&T has managed to put itself completely back together again. Greene took away the RBOCS (Regional Bell Operating Companies) from AT&T so all AT&T had was long lines. The RBOCs have managed to gobble each other up, until Southwest Bell (the biggest of the RBOCs) acquired AT&T after it had gobbled up the other RBOCs first.