Document: WM-081                                                 P. Webb
Category: Computing                                           2026-01-13

            The Reason Why We’ll Never Get Another Bell Labs

Abstract

   Or Xerox PARC, for that matter.

Body

   The technologies that underpin much of modern society were invented
   by Bell Labs[1], Xerox PARC[2], and BBN[3]; the Unix operating
   system, C and C++ programming langauges, laser printing, Ethernet,
   modern computing paradigms, the mouse, e-paper, email, and the
   precursor to the internet, just to name a few. These R&D labs
   however, only existed because of the monopolies their parent
   companies enjoyed (or DARPA contracts, in the case of BBN). With all
   this extra money, why not put some of it toward being THE place for
   attracting inventors, researchers, and engineers? Positive press from
   next-generation discoveries makes the investors happy, the market is
   happy, the stock price is happy.

   Big Tech has shied away from that. Instead of "how great would this
   be for the world?" it’s "how great would this be for US?" In other
   words, they fail the "just release cool shit" challenge.

   Remember Phonebloks[4]? Remember Project Ara[5]? Modular smartphone
   projects with the aim to reduce waste and make a phone feel like you
   actually owned it? Google shut them down. Or maybe you remember
   Dark Sky, the weather API that was so damn good that Apple acquired
   and sunset it. You can still build on it, Dark Sky has been wrapped
   into WeatherKit[6]. You just need to pay the annual $99 developer fee
   and then API fees if you make more than half a million API calls a
   month (your weather app gets popular).

   There are tons more examples, those are what comes to mind easily.

   Software is eating the world[7] and Big Tech is eating software and
   leaving us crumbs. What happened to leaving the world better than you
   found it? Acquiring and exterminating great ideas is not the way.

   The irony is that Big Tech is terrified of harboring the very
   conditions that enabled its existence…curiousity, ingenuity,
   and rejection of the status quo (and a smattering of luck).

   I grew up an avid reader of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics
   magazines and was enamored with depictions of future tech. Microsoft
   regularly made videos[8] showcasing where they saw the future going
   and it signaled to me that they might be a forward-thinking company
   as well. I thought adults were the coolest because they were hard
   at work building an awesome future for my generation to live, work,
   and play in.

   Boy was I fucking wrong.

   No one talks about the immense disappointment that comes with
   realizing you believed in a fantasy world that you were taught was
   the real world. Instead, we share memes about "the future we were
   promised" and laugh to hide the collective pain. I’ll be 38 this year
   and I’m more than a little disgruntled about all this.

   Ink & Switch[9] is an R&D lab working on cool stuff and they aren’t
   attached to a corporation, they’re a collection of like-minded folks
   exploring the future. We need more of them. The era of cash-infused
   ideological backers is long gone; which is unfortunate because the
   cost of living is too damn high. I guess I’m just ranting that I
   missed out on getting paid to create the future and am frustrated
   that I gotta do it for free.

   Ah well, it is what it is. I’ve pulled myself up by the bootstraps
   before, I suppose I could do it again. 🕸️