@lauren Things are pretty bad! And monopolies can do things like Bell Labs at its best, but monopolies were necessary, not sufficient. It was the combination of monopolies and high marginal tax rates that meant firms took a broader view of what to do with their surplus than shareholder value. (We'd have more resilience in contemporary telecoms if their surplus could basically only be reinvested.) 1/

@lauren Systems at vast scale are hard, for sure, but maybe we want fewer of them rather than worship at the altar of the challenge. /fin