If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
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If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
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Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#2Fun read! Drawing parallels of today’s world with the past. In some ways phonebooks of the past aren’t too different than the modern search engine. Hundreds of numbers (urls), a central lookup, and prominent placement to get your business ranked ahead of millions of others. As long as we have phone books, the person who took the time to write it all will always win.
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#3Fun read! Drawing parallels of today’s world with the past. In some ways phonebooks of the past aren’t too different than the modern search engine. Hundreds of numbers (urls), a central lookup, and prominent placement to get your business ranked ahead of millions of others. As long as we have phone books, the person who took the time to write it all will always win.
One of the competitive dynamics of phone books was that businesses were essentially extorted to buy advertising in any phone book whose publisher had the scale to give everyone in your town a copy.
If you didn't buy advertising in every one of N phone books, you lost roughly 1/N sales for each book you failed to advertise in.
More than one empire was built by introducing new phonebook after phonebook to town after town. Despite none of the towns needing another phonebook.
So it may be a bittersweet situation that Google's lock on search at least saves businesses from having to advertise in 20 search engines. Although given Google advertising is an auction, maybe there are no savings.
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#4[deleted]
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#5Here's how I'd pitch it
> Oil for the lamps of China, but for adverts
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#6I really thought it would be more subtle than that. Google sells its phones, charges for it's phone plan (market rates on both) and certainly doesn't advertise during calls.
Google uses advertising to pay for services with near-zero marginal cost. That's a pretty new phenomenon, so it's not surprising that AT&T never thought to give away ad-supported hardware to use on it's limited capacity, circuit-switched network.
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#7Fun read! Drawing parallels of today’s world with the past. In some ways phonebooks of the past aren’t too different than the modern search engine. Hundreds of numbers (urls), a central lookup, and prominent placement to get your business ranked ahead of millions of others. As long as we have phone books, the person who took the time to write it all will always win.
Fun?! When it came up two weeks ago I felt like it was making me more ignorant. Here's what I wrote at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28473805 :
This makes no sense. It's like the author has zero knowledge of the relevant history, including things I learned in high school American history.
Don't read it unless you want to get dumber.
At the very least, here's some of the missing real-world context.
The Mann–Elkins Act made the telephone system a common carrier in 1910, fully 11 years before this scenario. You couldn't legally "have their legal permission" for this practice.
100 years ago would have been part of the trust-busting of Taft and Wilson, at the end of the Progressive Era. AT&T had to do business bearing that in mind - something Google doesn't have to do now.
More specifically, AT&T and the US government even had an out-of-court agreement concerning possible monopoly behavior - the Kingsbury Commitment - that ended with the Willis Graham Act of 1921 which said the ICC could regulate AT&T as a natural monopoly. Google doesn't face that now.
> "PRESIDENT: [Clearly alarmed] Monitor every call? Are you joking?"
One operator per phone call = very expensive. Ads won't pay for that.
There wasn't the automation ability to play those recorded advertisement. As it was, a vast army of switchboard operators was needed just to make the system work.
> "we give out the number of another beauty salon instead"
They wouldn't be surprised. That's exactly what happened. That's supposedly the reason for creating an early automatic telephone exchange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch The quote attributed to him is: "No longer will my competitor steal all my business just because his wife is a BELL operator."
> "You will bankrupt all of these businesses. .. That’s why we cap it at 25%."
AT&T knew how to extract a profit. Quoting https://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/att.htm
] "Having secured its monopoly position, AT&T engaged in the 1880s in a series of rate hikes under the justification of expanding the service. The public faced with no alternative service responded negatively. Responses included establishing legal authority to regulate the rates (See Common Carriage) and also the establishment of municipal networks."
Had AT&T taken this hypothetical Google advice, the public would have responded even more strongly.
> "Well, we already have a word for that. It’s called bribery, Mr. Google"
Are you kidding me? They would have said "It's called lobbying, not pax."
The 1920s C-suite would have had no qualms with the idea of lobbying in the interests of corporate power.
The WP entry for "Lobbying in the United States" even includes a political cartoon from 1889, titled "The Bosses of the Senate" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States#... , linking to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Bosses_of_the_Se... .
> We divested our telegraph business ages ago.
WHAT!? They didn't leave the telegraph business until 1991. Here's a copy of their press release. http://www.baudot.net/docs/att--exits-telegraph-biz.pdf .
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#8> MR. GOOGLE: Oh yes you can—if you’re letting people make phone calls for free. They have no choice in the matter, do they? But that’s only the start. We will match the advertising to what customers are discussing on their calls. So if mom is complaining about her back pains, we pitch a healing ointment or some other medicinal product. If dad is calling about his car breaking down, we tell him about the latest Ford Model T.
> VP ENGINEERING: But that’s impossible. How do we even know what people are talking about on their phone calls?
> MR. GOOGLE: That’s a great question, and it makes clear how little you have done to exploit your platform. You need to monitor every call, and compile a file of information on every customer.
It kind of ruined it for me to have suggestions like this that were totally impractical with 1920s technology.
> MR GOOGLE: That’s just the start. There are a hundred more ways we can make money from phones. For example, people need to find out the telephone numbers of the people they want to call. That’s what we call a search function. Businesses will pay top dollar to be included in the search results.
> PRESIDENT: [So shocked he spits out his coffee]: Whoa—do I understand you correctly? When someone calls the operator and asks for the phone number of Judy’s Beauty Salon, we give out the number of another beauty salon instead—and take a kickback for lying?
IIRC, the automatic telephone switch was invented to prevent this very problem. An undertaker invented it because one of his competitor's wives was the telephone operator, and she would route calls for new business meant for him to her husband.
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#9I get everyone here is on the Google hate-train, but this is just bad. Not an interesting perspective in the least.
Re: If AT&T Had Managed the Phone Business Like Google
#10Fun read! Drawing parallels of today’s world with the past. In some ways phonebooks of the past aren’t too different than the modern search engine. Hundreds of numbers (urls), a central lookup, and prominent placement to get your business ranked ahead of millions of others. As long as we have phone books, the person who took the time to write it all will always win.
Fun?! When it came up two weeks ago I felt like it was making me more ignorant. Here's what I wrote at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28473805 : This makes no sense. It's like the author has zero knowledge of the relevant history, including things I learned in high school American history. Don't read it unless you want to get dumber. At the very least, here's some of the missing real-world context. The Mann–Elk…
Interesting factual analysis. I think the original piece was written as parody of Google, though, rather than as a criticism of At&t per se