The AOL/Time Warner merger was announced on January 10, 2000. On April 3, 2000, Judge Jackson’s final ruling suggesting the breakup of Microsoft was announced. At the time, these two events felt epochal—clarion signals ushering in a new era in the technology and even media industries. Instead, from the perspective of hindsight, they look more like historical footnotes, bracketing the weeks when the dot-com bubble finally burst.
