Online age checks came first — a VPN crackdown could be next
Online age checks came first — a VPN crackdown could be next

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about online age verification and your privacy, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Virtual private networks, or VPNs, weren’t always […]

Live-service games are a mess
Live-service games are a mess

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the slow-motion disaster of live-service games, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Two years ago, I stood at the top […]

The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles
The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the EV struggle, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Apologies to the Toyota Prius, but the first hybrid vehicle […]

How MLB can make baseball relevant on a fast-changing internet
How MLB can make baseball relevant on a fast-changing internet

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the contemporary attention economy, follow Mia Sato. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started “KING BASEBALL, monarch of the American sport world, is sick,” […]

America desperately needs new privacy laws
America desperately needs new privacy laws

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the dire state of tech regulation, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started In 1973, long before the modern digital era, […]

AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to
AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about video game industry’s pushback against generative AI, follow Jay Peters. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Long before the generative AI explosion, […]

Netflix’s Warner Bros. merger puts rival streamers in survival mode
Netflix’s Warner Bros. merger puts rival streamers in survival mode

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about the streaming wars, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started From 2019 to around 2021, we were in the midst […]

The telephoto is the only phone camera that really matters
The telephoto is the only phone camera that really matters

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on Android phones, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra wasn’t the first phone to feature a periscopic […]

The great e-bike crackdown has begun
The great e-bike crackdown has begun

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the e-bike movement, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Last week, I did something I don’t typically do, which […]

Under Musk, the Grok disaster was inevitable
Under Musk, the Grok disaster was inevitable

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on dystopian developments in AI, follow Hayden Field. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started You could say it all started with Elon Musk’s AI […]