The Stepback | The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2026-04-21T16:53:39+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/the-stepback-newsletter/index.xml https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Tina Nguyen <![CDATA[The future of local TV news has taken a Trumpian turn]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=914674 2026-04-21T12:53:39-04:00 2026-04-19T08:00:00-04:00 And image of the US Constitution through TV static.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more stories on Big Tech versus politics in Washington, DC, follow Tina Nguyen and read Regulator. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

A long time ago, in 2004, the Federal Communications Commission laid down a rule designed to prevent a monopoly: No one company could broadcast to more than 39 percent of all the TV households in the United States. But then Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025. Brendan Carr became FCC chairman and immediately kicked off a deregu …

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]]> David Pierce <![CDATA[The AI code wars are heating up]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=910019 2026-04-21T12:08:39-04:00 2026-04-12T08:00:00-04:00 An animation of laptops racing with live code being generated on their screens

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the AI coding and vibe-coding booms, follow David Pierce. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Writing code was a killer app for AI even before anyone was really talking about AI. In the spring of 2021, 18 months before the world knew the word "ChatGPT," Microsoft debuted the very first product of a partnership with a nonprofit called OpenAI: a tool called GitHub Copilot that watched developers as they wrote code and tried to autocomplete snippets and lines for them …

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]]> Stevie Bonifield <![CDATA[Grammarly’s sloppelganger saga]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=906606 2026-04-13T12:40:49-04:00 2026-04-05T08:00:00-04:00 An illustration of a hand with extra fingers where a head should be

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the ups and downs of AI, follow Stevie Bonifield. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Most people probably know Grammarly for its browser extension that suggests how to spruce up your emails, but over the past few years, it's been eyeing bigger ambitions. In October, the company formerly known as Grammarly made a public pivot to rebrand as an AI company called Superhuman. The new name was adopted from Superhuman Mail, an AI email platform that Grammarly acquired i …

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]]> Adi Robertson <![CDATA[Apple’s long, bitter App Store antitrust war]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=902668 2026-04-06T13:08:07-04:00 2026-03-29T08:00:00-04:00 Gavel, justice scales, and Apple logo coming out of an Apple desktop window.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the legal travails of Big Tech, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

The year was 1998, and reigning personal computer giant Microsoft was on trial for violating antitrust laws, including by targeting its smaller competitor Apple. Apple occupied only a fraction of the PC market, while Microsoft held north of 80 percent. But its cross-platform QuickTime multimedia player threatened Microsoft's own offerings, and a court determined that Microsoft …

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]]> Emma Roth <![CDATA[Online age checks came first — a VPN crackdown could be next]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=898122 2026-03-30T09:55:12-04:00 2026-03-22T08:00:00-04:00 Illustration of VPNs being censored worldwide

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 used to access region-locked Netflix streams, bypass censorship online, or to prevent your internet service provider (ISP) from tracking your browsing history. It took years for VPNs to become the technology we know today, which provides an encrypted connection between your device and a private server, while conce …

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]]> Andrew Webster <![CDATA[Live-service games are a mess]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=893294 2026-03-24T11:22:13-04:00 2026-03-15T08:00:00-04:00 Marathon video game still

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 of the iconic red stairs in Times Square to experience the weirdest concert of my life. As glowing butterflies flitted about the various screens, a crowd steadily grew, knowing something was happening, but unsure of what. Then a countdown started, and a minute later one of the screens opened up, revealing Ice Spice and, later, …

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]]> Andrew J. Hawkins <![CDATA[The uncomfortable truth about hybrid vehicles]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=890135 2026-03-17T11:06:40-04:00 2026-03-08T08:00:00-04:00 unplugged hybrid car

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 of note was the Semper Vivus, developed by Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche) way back in 1900. The Semper Vivus (Latin for "always alive") used two combustion engines to power generators, which then fed electricity to motors inside the wheel hubs. The fact that it took modern engineers over a century to really appreciate th …

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]]> Mia Sato <![CDATA[How MLB can make baseball relevant on a fast-changing internet]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=886115 2026-03-27T12:10:27-04:00 2026-03-01T08:00:00-05:00 A collage of baseball love on pink coming out of a phone with hearts and emojis

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," a New York Times story on the disappearance of amateur and small town sandlots begins. Hundreds of thousands of fans attended the opening games of the season, and star players are making bank in huge stadiums. "Nevertheless the critics say that his Royal Highness is indisposed."

The story is from 1925. But it read …

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]]> Adi Robertson <![CDATA[America desperately needs new privacy laws]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=882516 2026-03-23T11:53:06-04:00 2026-02-22T08:00:00-05:00 Eye looking through a window

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, the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) published a report called "Records, Computers, and the Rights of Citizens." Networked computers seemed "destined to become the principal medium for making, storing, and using records about people," the report's foreword began. These systems could be a "powerful management …

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]]> Jay Peters <![CDATA[AI can’t make good video game worlds yet, and it might never be able to]]> https://www.theverge.com/?p=879524 2026-02-20T12:14:53-05:00 2026-02-15T08:00:00-05:00 Project Genie rendering of a Mario-like world

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, video game developers made games that could generate their own worlds. Think of titles like Minecraft or even the original 1980 Rogue that is the basis for the term "roguelike"; these games and many others create worlds on the fly with certain rules and parameters. Human developers painstakingly work to make s …

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