There's a long history of that. AT&T used to have a stranglehold on communications and had some seriously bad practices.
But they also produced some really cool tech. Unix being the obvious one to bring up on this site.
That era is romanticized to hell (including by me), and Ritchie, Thompson, and the like are folk heroes. Despite being engineers at the subsidiary of a giant monopolistic entity.
Ultimately, for people who think the tech is cool, it doesn't matter where it comes from. In 50 years people will be romanticizing the era of the FAANG companies (more than they already do) the same way we romanticize bell labs.
But they also produced some really cool tech. Unix being the obvious one to bring up on this site.
That era is romanticized to hell (including by me), and Ritchie, Thompson, and the like are folk heroes. Despite being engineers at the subsidiary of a giant monopolistic entity.
Ultimately, for people who think the tech is cool, it doesn't matter where it comes from. In 50 years people will be romanticizing the era of the FAANG companies (more than they already do) the same way we romanticize bell labs.