Ugh this isn’t what HOAs are for!

HOAs are intended to harass and discriminate against black and brown people so that they don’t move in, or at least immediately leave.

Not white guys with majestic beards.

He must’ve been giving water to black or brown people, it’s the only justifiable reason.

They fined him with stage 4 cancer? That must be some sort of cruel and unusual punishment, right?

Kindof? I guess that’s a corollary. What I’m saying is that despite being objectively larger and more successful companies, they don’t have nearly the innovation we got from the collaborative efforts of US (i.e. DARPA) and Bell’s research.

It demonstrated that looking out on a very long timeline…decades, if not longer…and investing on projects that won’t show any returns for just as long…if ever…but it can reap massive rewards for everyone.

But…capitalism…pure capitalism…only allows that through monopolies. Which of course is their own can of worms.

Regulated capitalism is just as bad, if not even worse, because there is no incentive for companies to work together on a long enough timeline for it to matter. It results in everything being measured on a quarterly/yearly scale and expecting immediate results, while also disincentivizing publishing or any other dissemination of knowledge

Hence it falls on the government to bankroll these things through grants.

I was curious so I asked ChatGPT. The answer was surprising…all of them tower over Bell by nearly every financial measure…

Was Any Company Bigger Than Bell at Its Peak?

Short answer: Yes — by some metrics. But Bell was unique.

📡 Bell System at Its Peak

The Bell System (AT&T and its regional Bell companies) was a government-regulated telecom monopoly until its breakup in 1984.

• Revenue (early 1980s): ~$70–80B/year
  → ~$220–250B today, inflation-adjusted
• Employees: Over 1 million
• Market Cap (est.): ~$100–150B in 1980s
  → ~$300–400B today
• Market Share: ~90% of U.S. phone service
• R&D: Bell Labs (invented transistor, UNIX, lasers, info theory, etc.)

In short: Bell controlled the entire U.S. telecom backbone and set the pace for global innovation.

🦷 Big Tech Today (as of 2025)

• All exceed Bell’s revenue and market cap, even adjusted for inflation.
• Amazon rivals Bell’s employee count, but largely due to warehouses and delivery.

🧠 Influence Comparison

🧾 TL;DR: Is Anyone “Bigger”?

By market value and revenue? ✅ Yes
By number of employees? ✅ Amazon
By influence on infrastructure, science, and policy? ❌ No — Bell was foundational

Bell wasn’t just a company — it was the nervous system of American communication.

Even worse, if it were, NASA would be the last place to cut.

NASA actually sees a return on investment.

You know, one of the modern problems is we aren’t investing nearly enough public funds into R&D. Like 90% of 20th century American technological investment came from Bell Labs and public research.

Bell could invest a lot in research because they had money and weren’t concerned with competition. One of the benefits of being a protected monopoly.

In retrospect, it’d be nice to have had the money without having the monopoly.

I don’t know the numbers but I wouldn’t be surprised if any FAANG is bigger than Bell was at its peak. But they aren’t really monopolies to the level Bell was, so they keep most of what they develop and learn as proprietary/internal.

Edit to add: you know what country is putting a lot of public money behind R&D and subsidizing future industries? How do you think this will play out in 20 years? Chinas playing the long game and we are destroying decades of institutional knowledge for tiny quarterly gains. Absurd.

If you turn your head, the letters OGC look like a man with his legs bowed out, jerking off.

That’s what I’ll think of whenever I hear this name. A bunch of jerk-offs circle-jerking.

As others have said, highly location dependent.

I switched from Xfinity to T-Mobile 4 years ago because tmobiles speed (raw speed) blew Xfinity out of the water…especially for upload. Latency and jitter suffered a bit but not enough to greatly effect voice calls. It didn’t help my online gaming skills, but likely would’ve if I were a higher-caliber gamer. For me, the latency between chair and gamepad was much more impactful.

However Xfinity did some upgrades in my area and the roles have reversed so I’m back to Xfinity. Tmo is still absolutely usable, but Xfinity now offering 250mbps upload makes my mouth water.

In 1940s Germany, SS takes you.

In Soviet America, SS leaves you.

What a country!

Nuke it?

“cheap” is a relative term.

Nobody should be buying a DOCSIS 3.0 modem these days. They are obsolete and for some reason still being sold.

A decent DOCSIS 3.1 modem is at least $200. A Next Gen like S34 is at least $220. At least at the big blue big box store. And then you have to get your own wifi.

(However, that big blue store also will give you a 15% discount on any networking purchase if you recycle an old network device…I traded in an old modem but you should be able to find a switch or router at a thrift store and still come out ahead)

It pays for itself pretty quick (by not paying rental fees), but that doesn’t necessarily make it cheap.

I absolutely prefer using my own equipment, and do…but it’s also worth mentioning that in many markets, Xfinity removed data caps if you have a rented modem.