Actually Useful
Actually Useful
Ariel Butters and Josh Stretten-Carlson
The Homogenization of Tech: Why Products are Visually Boring
44 minutes Posted Dec 5, 2025 at 3:42 pm.
to see examples of how fast food restaurant architecture has homogenized over the yearsWe’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok (reluctantly).
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We chat with JP Candelier, a front-end developer and graphic designer, about how visually and artistically bland today’s tech has become compared to just a decade ago, why private equity firms seem determined to make everything look the same, and which Instagram filters shaped an entire generation’s aesthetic taste. In Falcon Mode, we dig into the pros and cons of a socially connected, gamified app that tracks whether we’re actually doing the virtuous things we say we want to do.Links:JP’s websiteMeta’s page for their weird (and very false) “Building America” campaignMore Perfect Union’s short documentary on the health toll of living near a data centerOne SecCheck out our YouTube video at 20:11 to see examples of how fast food restaurant architecture has homogenized over the yearsWe’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram and TikTok (reluctantly).