Hand two developers the same tool. One calls it a revelation. The other doesn't see the point. Same tool, opposite verdicts.
We treat "useless" as a fact about the thing. It's too often a fact about the person holding it.
Strict types feel like ceremony slowing you down. Then you rename one field and the compiler walks you to all forty call sites that just broke. The tool didn't change. You did.
A tool is a key. Whether it's useful depends on whether you can see the door it opens. Hand someone a key to a room they don't know exists, and of course they call it useless. You're describing a room they can't see.
That's why "what would I even use it for" only feels rigorous. You're asking today's imagination to rule on uses you haven't pictured yet. The obvious uses are never the interesting ones.
It gets worse heads-down. Claude Code writes the next function faster, so that's all it's for. The rest stays invisible: the knowledge base that keeps itself current, the onboarding that captures what's only in someone's head, the support inbox triaged before standup. The most value I've found isn't in the code. It's in the workflows around it.
When you catch yourself calling something useless, treat it as a signal, not a verdict. Maybe it is. Or maybe you're standing in front of a door you can't see. The only way to tell is to use it long enough for your imagination to catch up.
The skill was never operating the tool. Anyone learns the commands. The rare skill is seeing what a tool is for before the use is obvious. That's not knowledge. It's imagination.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So is usefulness.
Next time something strikes you as useless, ask the more honest question. Is it the tool? Or the size of the door you're willing to imagine?
