WI Thomas Edison falls off a cliff

Lately I've been reading a lot about Nikola Tesla and the sheer cuntishness of Thomas Edison is really shining through. I've always known him to be more a thief and a businessman than an inventor, but....wow. The more I read about him the more bad stuff comes through.
True. Tesla fanboys will naturally want to paint Edison in the worst light possible and Tesla is greatly overrated (albeit cool nonetheless) but still....I can't help but wonder what could have gone different had we given Tesla a chance.
So. WI in 1886 Thomas Edison suddenly dies.
He has no successor, say there's a lot of legal trouble and his company is broken up in the years that follow (to counter the natural reaction to Edison dies of his successor pretty much taking the same business decisions as he would have done anyway).
What would realistically come of such a scenario?
 
Sir Joseph Swan finally gets the credit for inventing the electric lightbulb rather than that theiving master of publicity and duplicity Thomas Edison. Its not just the Tesla fans who hate him!
 
Yes, Edison was a cunt.

Without him, and his strange obsession with the superiority of DC current, I'd expect to see a slightly quicker spread of electricity to more places. If his Patent-scalping was eliminated there'd likely be faster development in electrical technology too.
 
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