[9714] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
telephone co pre-divestiture
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rose Marie Holt)
Mon Jan 17 20:12:22 1994
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 1994 17:03:44 -0800 (PST)
From: Rose Marie Holt <rmholt@u.washington.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <m0pLTDV-000EqcC@mercury.mcs.com>
Re: the recent debate on service then-and-now - the telephone company was
a tremendous butt of jokes back then - there were bumper stickers
satirizing them ( "we dont care - we dont have to") not to mention Lily
Tomlin and her too-close-for-comfort jokes. There was even a movie
about some all-powerful monopoly that did evil - at the end we find out
it was Ma Bell-of-the-future. It was clear even then that the monopoly
was worse than any conceivable competition-based alternative - at least
most of us were willing to give divestiture a try. So who would even
pretend that things were better back then? Sure, we got a few "free"
services - at a high price. Or are we just reminiscing?
RM Holt
