Those are lovely rose-colored glasses! :) My understanding is that they also charged high rates for calling the next city, and more for calling further, opposed / dragged their heels on new tech like broadband data .... Since then we have essentially free communication - voice, video, and text - anywhere in the world, several broadband technologies, cell phones, endless VOIP options, faxes (did AT&T support those?) ... in fact, landlines are mostly gone.

Just imagine the world without broadband. I don't love the phone systems of today in all respects, but there is no comparison.