As Wu and others have rightly pointed out, the straightforward Chicago School standard overlooks, among other things, the stifling effect monopolies can have on innovation. As a case in point: when AT&T was broken up in 1984, a torrent of new products came on the market, everything from the first answering machines to early ISPs.
This is a oversimplification and wrong.
AT&T was controlled by the government until 1984 and only because of this we were able to got technical innovations like UNIX, The C Programming Language and reusable open-source software. This formed not only the foundation of Linux and C but also later the Internet. And all of this happened because AT&T was actually controlled instead of split up. They were not allowed to enter new markets and therefore we benefit all. What happened next? UNIX-Wars, Lawsuits and disastrous situation which enabled especially Microsoft.
The lesson learned here is that - just mere splitting up - doesn't fix anything. The government subsequently did actually nothing against Microsoft and it's contracts with PC-Manufacturers. What I cannot say is whether the government still doesn't understand what software is and it's influence?Especially mass gravitation through user. Or if just no market regulation happens since the 1980ies.
I wonder how Personal-Computers and the handling of source-code would've been evolved if BSD and SysV were have been better friends? The appreciation of source code availability? And maybe an simple option at the store which sold that IBM-PCs with the 386 processors. If you got that "UNIX" thing on our PC with the source - you would probably wondered a lot that the spreadsheet application doesn't came with the source...especially when you pay for it.
I think it's even more wrong than that, and suffers badly from post hoc ergo propter hoc.
How could the growth of answering machines be connected to the break-up of AT&T, which was about separating local from long-distance service? According to https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma..., there were commercial answering machines being sold in the U.S. in 1960. The increase in the use of answering machines in the 1980s likely had a lot more to do with the emergence of cheap microchips and cassette tapes, which greatly reduced their cost.
And what did the breakup of AT&T have to do with the creation of the first ISPs? Even before the breakup, anyone could create their own separate communications networks if they wanted. There were already commercial computer networks like TymNet and consumer proto-ISPs like CompuServe before the breakup and the breakup had no effect on them.
> How could the growth of answering machines be connected to the break-up of AT&T, which was about separating local from long-distance service?
I believe they are talking about AT&T's ability to impose rules over what devices could be connected to the telephone network, and how. That's one of the reasons that both early answering machines (like the one you linked to) and modems used acoustic couplers. It's true, though, that court cases had eroded how tightly AT&T could control what devices could be connected to phone jacks well before the breakup of the Bell System. Still, 1200 baud modems were only possible with a direct connection, and didn't become commercially available until the year after the Bell System breakup.
Per your linked article: "That began to change in the 1950s
... Following the D.C. Circuit’s Hush-a-Phone decision, the FCC began establishing standards that would allow the sale and use of myriad devices on the telephone network, from answering machines, to fax machines, to computer modems."
Yes. Regarding technology, the US is not the only country in the world. Answer machines and wireless phones where introduced worldwide be many companies around that time. Technology evolved at that time quickly, transistor usage in consumer devices.
For example at that time phone lines where controlled in Germany by the state owned "Deutsche Bundespost" (similiar to USPS) and there were a lot of heated debates between Chaos-Computer-Club (CCC) and them about what to connect to the lines or not.
Finally CCC won through the privatization of Deutsche Post. Did they? A mere pyrrhic victory. The new private owner of the cable lines restrict what to connect so thightly by there marketpower that the same problem from late 80ies emerged again in 2010ies. We have now extra laws which requires free usage of modems and routers. The private companies still try to make it as hard as possible. The only company which makes it easy for the average customer to get a contract without a modem at all is "Deutsche Telekom" (a smaller successor company of Deutsche Bundespost).
In other terms, it seems that well minded regulation is required in terms of peoples need. It may is a surprise but the same problem with "what can I connect" emerged with state owned companies, one big monopoly or multiple private companies.
The problem was even lets say AT&T was willing to put BSD on pc style hardware they were wildly overpricing it. If you were dead set at that time having a PC you could kit one out for ~2k which was respectable for the time. Yet then AT&T would come along and say 'oh you want BSD? 20,000 please, oh and that PC you got well it does not work correctly with it you need to buy a different set of kit that is 8x the cost, plus a 40k per year support cost'. AT&T is and was a phone company through and through. I have worked at the leftovers of another one. They only care about one thing, number of lines hooked up. Their sales staff and training is all about that. How can software sell me more lines. It is one of the metrics that they look at. A few thousand PC sales? A blip on the balance sheet and probably not really worth investing in because it does not sell more lines. Phone companies are laser focused on that.
This is a oversimplification and wrong. AT&T was controlled by the government until 1984 and only because of this we were able to got technical innovations like UNIX, The C Programming Language and reusable open-source software. This formed not only the foundation of Linux and C but also later the Internet. And all of this happened because AT&T was actually controlled instead of split up. They were not allowed to enter new markets and therefore we benefit all. What happened next? UNIX-Wars, Lawsuits and disastrous situation which enabled especially Microsoft.
The lesson learned here is that - just mere splitting up - doesn't fix anything. The government subsequently did actually nothing against Microsoft and it's contracts with PC-Manufacturers. What I cannot say is whether the government still doesn't understand what software is and it's influence?Especially mass gravitation through user. Or if just no market regulation happens since the 1980ies.
I wonder how Personal-Computers and the handling of source-code would've been evolved if BSD and SysV were have been better friends? The appreciation of source code availability? And maybe an simple option at the store which sold that IBM-PCs with the 386 processors. If you got that "UNIX" thing on our PC with the source - you would probably wondered a lot that the spreadsheet application doesn't came with the source...especially when you pay for it.