Different time. Bell was one of the last great break ups and occurred just before the modern pro-Big Business, ultra-financialized era kicked off in earnest. If Bell weren't broken up, Bell labs would have been shut down or severely trimmed regardless as the execs diverted the R&D spend to stock buybacks or other inefficient use of funds that benefits the shareholders over all else (e.g. Boeing).

I think a better parallel is the late-20s early-30s Robber Baron breakups. There's been much ink and elections spilled over how that anti-trust era contributed directly to the proliferation of post-war innovation (e.g. https://bookshop.org/p/books/goliath-the-100-year-war-betwee...)