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 threadGarrett Wollman

@copito @ghorwood They filed for and received (and enforced) almost as many patents as IBM.

The difference is that AT&T was broken up on 1 January 1984, so the last of those patents would have expired in 2003.

May 15, 2024 at 3:57amWeb