Actually Useful

By Ariel Butters and Josh Stretten-Carlson

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Category: Technology

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Episodes: 27

Description

Why do so many once-beloved internet platforms end up toxic, predatory, and unusable? In an age where tech giants have monopolized our attention, privacy, and livelihoods, how can individuals claw back some agency? Every other Thursday, Actually Useful co-hosts Ariel and Josh talk with creators of radically useful consumer tech to explore what it takes to build and protect the loveliest parts of the internet. If you’re exhausted by parasitic products and feel trapped in an ecosystem of unethical, undelightful tech, this one’s for you.

Episode Date
Public Money, Private Profit (Private Equity Pt. 2)
Jul 16, 2026
The Extraction Economy (Private Equity Pt. 1)
Jul 02, 2026
The End of Google Search
Jun 18, 2026
The Darwinism of Dating Apps
Jun 04, 2026
The Sci-Fi to Silicon Valley Pipeline
May 21, 2026
The Promises and Pitfalls of Self-Publishing
May 07, 2026
AI Video, Slopaganda, and the Making of Meaning
Apr 23, 2026
Meta’s Exploitation of Kids Has No Limit
Apr 09, 2026
You Might Be an Attention Activist
Mar 26, 2026
Sports Betting, Predictive Markets, and Financializing Everything
Mar 12, 2026
Your Favorite Bookstore’s Favorite Audiobook App
Feb 26, 2026
LinkedIn Wants You Unemployed
Feb 12, 2026
AI Collisions, Shadow Ledgers, and Implementing AI That Doesn’t Suck
Jan 29, 2026
AI Sexbots, Deepfakes, and the Monetization of Misogyny
Jan 15, 2026
What We’ve Learned So Far
Dec 18, 2025
The Homogenization of Tech: Why Products are Visually Boring
Dec 05, 2025
Enshittification Nation
Nov 20, 2025
Inside Amazon While Things Got Bad and Weird
Nov 06, 2025
Make Your Industry Mad!
Oct 23, 2025
Is AI Slop What the People Want?
Oct 09, 2025
Palantir’s Panopticon and the Middle-Earth Military Industrial Complex
Sep 25, 2025
Accept Cookies and Other UX Crimes
Sep 11, 2025
The Search Squeeze, Half-Baked AI Agents, and the App That Stops Cholera
Aug 28, 2025
The AI Episode: Empire of AI, Boomers and Doomers, and ChatGPT Therapy
Aug 14, 2025
How Groover Resists Pay-to-Play and Democratizes Music Discovery
Jul 31, 2025
Tech Unions, Remote Work, and Building Journalism Tech
Jul 17, 2025
Introducing Actually Useful
Jul 03, 2025