https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201221/10160445930/att-is-sad-because-nobody-wants-to-overpay-directv.shtml (excerpts below)
Under CEO Randall Stephenson, AT&T spent roughly $200 billion on mergers with DirecTV and Time Warner, hoping this would secure its ability to dominate the pay TV space through brute force. But the exact opposite happened. Saddled with so much debt from the deal, AT&T passed on annoying price hikes to its consumers. It also embraced a branding strategy so damn confusing – with so many different product names – it even confused its own employees (see article titled "AT&T's Terrible New TV Branding Confuses Even AT&T" from the good old days of 2019 - https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190905/07444142926/atts-terrible-new-tv-branding-confuses-even-att.shtml )
When we talk about the U.S. having flimsy and pathetic antitrust scrutiny and a relentless obsession with id–tic, "growth for growth's sake" mergers, AT&T's last five years remains exhibit A. instead of promised innovation, we got rate hikes and layoffs. And the next time AT&T proposes a merger, folks will pretend none of this ever happened.