ghorwood↙↙↙May 14, 2024

you want enshittification? the bell phone monopoly gave us, free of encumbrance, the transistor, the solar panel, telstar, three different types of lasers, pressure treated lumber, and two operating systems, one of which i like.

and today at&t is bribing the friends of public officials to get out of providing landlines.

Show threadmiketcopeMay 14, 2024
@ghorwood free of encumbrance in what sense?
Show threadghorwood↙↙↙May 15, 2024
@copito in the sense that you can design a transistor or a solar panel and not have to pay a licensing fee to the phone company. how many transistors are in that chip?
Show threadmiketcopeMay 15, 2024
@ghorwood they didn’t enforce their patents?
Show threadmiketcope
@ghorwood when I was growing up all the telephones were rented from the local Bell phone company and it was illegal to plug anything else into the phone socket, so I guess I have a different memory of the benevolence of Bell
May 15, 2024 at 1:19amWeb
Show threadghorwood↙↙↙May 15, 2024
@copito by law they were only allowed to make money from the phone service. if they developed, ie. the solar panel, they couldn’t sell or license it. they built these things to make running the phones cheaper, but they had to foss those techs.