1. I'll add just a couple of things to Cory's thread from yesterday. It's important to remember what Americans thought about AT&T back then, and how similar that is to Amazon today. https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1318909286001463301

2. First, not only did breaking up AT&T unlock competition over phone features to the point that they became both free and commonplace, but it also allowed AT&T to unlock the power behind its own inventions that it hadn't pursued before.

3. AT&T's industrial laboratory Bell Labs invented cellular phone service. It's easy to forget, because AT&T never rolled out a nationwide cellular system to rival its wireline service.

Why not? Because it didn't need to. AT&T was a powerful and profitable monopoly.

4. It wasn't until the breakup of AT&T in 1983, when Bell Labs' tech was sent to the regional Baby Bells, that cellular service in the US became a reality. The Baby Bells used the tech to launch the first cellular telephone services to compete for corporate clients.

5. AT&T's monopoly killed its need to innovate, to the point that by the time the Baby Bells launched the first US cell phone service, the Japanese and Europeans were already well ahead of us. Even though we invented it!

Monopoly made us less competitive globally, not more.

6. Then there's long distance service. Before breakup, AT&T controlled basically all long distance calling in the US. It was so outlandishly expensive, it was basically just for businesses with deep pockets. It wasn't for you and me.

AT&T's breakup happened in 1983. By 1991, the cost of a long distance call had fallen 45%! You could use AT&T, MCI, WorldCom and others.

In less than a decade, calling your grandma three states away was affordable and normal. It took ending the monopoly for that to happen.

8. Then there's phones - the things that used to be attached to walls and sat on tables. Under the AT&T monopoly, the only phones that worked with AT&T's landlines were made by Western Electric, which AT&T owned.

Could you buy a phone from them? Nope! You had to RENT IT.

9. So every month, as part of a phone bill, people paid AT&T money just for the privilege of having a physical phone that could send and receive calls. AT&T controlled everything, from the lines on the poll to the handset you held to your ear.

10. After AT&T was broken up, most people, of course, just bought their phones. From a variety of manufacturers. Western Electric was eventually sold off and shuttered. Without the AT&T monopoly, it was neither necessary nor profitable.

11. There's more to the story, but I'll leave it there. But obviously, AT&T was a daily presence in American life. In, say, 1960, it would have been impossible to imagine how the household or office would work without Ma Bell.

Now think about Amazon today.

12. Amazon today has used its vast monopoly to make itself feel necessary to the functioning of American commerce. So much more so during the pandemic. How would we get these things we need, so quickly, without Amazon making it happen?

Let the breakup of AT&T be a lesson.

13. Not only can we break up a seemingly impenetrable monopoly, like AT&T and like Amazon, but we can unlock innovation and competition in multiple industries by doing so.

14. Life is vastly better and more productive today without AT&T controlling the way we communicate with each other. If we follow Congress' direction and break up Amazon, we'll be better off without that monopolist controlling how we sell and shop.

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