Western Union Vs Morse?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/how-the-robber-barons-hijacked-the-victorian-internet/2/

Two years after the conclusion of the Civil War, the two biggest competing telegraph news services—Western Associated Press and New York Associated Press—effectively merged with a joint executive board. (Note that, at the time, the "Western" Associated Press included newspapermen from St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis.)

The duo then cut a deal with telegraph operator Western Union [Emphasis added]. In exchange for exclusive access to Western Union, both APs promised never to "encourage or support any opposition or competing Telegraph Company." In turn, newspapers that subscribed to AP pledged to use AP only. And no new newspaper could join the news cartel without the support of current AP members in the region.
Notice the last stage of the cartel: you can only start a newspaper and use the Associated Press service if you have the “support” of other newspapers in your region.
 
Business and Politics of Underwater Cables
Harvard Business School

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/business-and-politics-of-underwater-cables

' . . . In 1861 [Emphasis added], the American telegraph promoter Perry Collins, convinced by the 1857-58 fiascoes that transatlantic cables would never work, proposed to construct a land line from the United States to Europe via British Columbia, Alaska, and Siberia. He secured $50,000 from the United States government to survey the coasts of the northern Pacific Ocean and received the enthusiastic support of Hiram Sibley, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company. When the Civil War ended, Collins and Western Union recruited veteran army telegraphers and began surveying and laying wires in British Columbia, Alaska, and northeastern Siberia. Their line was half completed when news arrived of a new, and successful, Atlantic cable, putting a stop to their project. . .
Maybe if Collins had just gotten rolling a little sooner.
 
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