There’s been a lot of excellent analysis and reporting about the proposed $86b AT&T / Time Warner merger in the days since the deal was announced, but this infographic from the Wall Street Journal really nails the fundamental insanity of the telecom industry. What started in 1877 as the original Bell Telephone Co turned into the great phone monopoly of AT&T, found itself broken up by the government in 1984, and has since slowly reconstituted itself as the massive duopoly of the modern AT&T and Verizon. At the same time, Warner sucked up Time Inc to become TimeWarner, merged with AOL in history’s most popular business punchline, un-merged, spun off Time Inc again, and is now being swallowed by AT&T while AOL is now part of…

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