[RNCTX]

+1 and this mentality persisted all the way through the Lucent bankruptcy, prior to which their business model was to sue everyone who had ever talked on a phone, right on up to the previous presidential administration which involved trying to place former telco execs on FCC regulatory boards to rewrite rules which aren't really rules.

But what they don't address is that HBOMax is already the worst streaming app on my TV, and therefore it doesn't matter how much money AT&T throws at politics. Their stuff sucks because they're AT&T, not because of some political misfortune.

[riffic]

the existing AT&T is not the previous AT&T.

edit: sources

* Current AT&T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T

* Old AT&T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Corporation

* History: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_AT%26T

[Retric]

The existing AT&T is just a zombie formed from 5 of the original 8 fragments of the old AT&T. I can’t help but wonder how many former coworkers at AT&T in 1981 where reunited in 2014 without ever having left the fragments.

[toast0]

At least some of the fragments were doing a lot of pushing out of older employees in the 2000s, so probably not a whole lot left, but I like the concept.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

No, it's the previous AT&T with some parts factored out (most notably, Verizon). It also apparently managed to remerge several parts of itself over the years, which is mind boggling (how that didn't trigger immediate court action is beyond me): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

[RNCTX]

Oh but it is. Culture doesn't tend to change, particularly with ridiculous "rebranding" exercises.