Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for May 18, 2020

Nearly forty years later and AT&T owns CNN.

I wonder how many remember: back in the days of dial-in BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), some of them devoted to particular computer brands, the ones that concentrated on AT&T computers were in fact known as “Death Stars.”

Our government “heroes” seriously considered doing this to Microsoft back in the 90’s. Apple was dying fast and MS would have been the “last man standing” in the computing world. (Their greatest “sin” was daring to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows – which seemed to really rankle everyone.)

Bill Gates handed Apple a big wad of cash to keep them afloat and that seemed to settle everyone down. Apple released the iPod shortly thereafter and the rest is history.

“Pop! Pop! Pop!”? Opus has a semi-automatic pop-gun?

My dad worked for Pacific Bell and lived and worked through the AT&T breakup. He had this cartoon on our refrigerator and then on a bulletin board in his rec room for years.

At least we don’t have to worry about tangled phone cords any more.

“Cheap phones whose cords tangle.” Now that’s a dated reference.

There are Pros and Cons to allowing Monopolies. The main Pro is increased efficiency which isn’t usually worth the main Con of price gouging, and the secondary one of stifling innovation.

But breaking them up doesn’t eliminate the obscene profits. Consider how when the Government broke up Stanard Oil, they actually increased the personal wealth of J. D. Rockefeller since he owned massive shares of the resulting smaller Oil Companies.

“Poink” has still got to be one of my favorite sound effects words, ever.

So the breakup of the Bell system was going to cause higher phone rates and phones with cords that tangled? Man did Berke blow this one!

AT&T survives to offer shoddy and over-priced service right to this very day.

Sadly, I am a [customer] sucker….