Elon is right to understand that the data of a successful everything app (which can only happen by monopoly) will give him vast power in tech. However, after failing to implement one aspect of it in an established market and after removing most talent from Twitter, how will anyone keep falling for his techno-Ponzi scheme?
Wechat is so creepy. I mean you could just get caught in some misunderstanding of being labeled as a dissident and get cut off from basically all communications.
And even if you are just an innocent civilian, all it takes is one bad hack and now criminals have the data of 1 Billion people.
Convenience and marketing will always win at the end. We're heading that way anyway. People use Apple Pay and Google pay and don't think for a second what it means. Other forms of ID are going that way too. People want ecosystems without having to lift a finger. Just let big brother take care of everything.
What, you want to talk privately? Use cash? What do you have to hide?
He's a decade late on that. I don't see people wanting one app having that much of their information being constantly collected in the background. Then again, millions of people agreed to Threads' data harvesting so...
If an application has tracking and censorship software that is tied to a country's government, then chances are I'm not gonna use that app, especially if China's government is involved. This is why I hate WeChat.
Besides, an "everything app" basically just defeats the purpose of having an app icon collection on your home screen. I like how colorful it looks, and I don't want that to be taken away.
We're just getting further and further into dystopia at this point.
Why would you put yourself into an obvious dead end street? People already have problems leaving whatsapp for better messengers. People have a hard time quitting their amazon-addiction, even though there are many alternatives out there. Imagine you put all your eggs in one basket (messenger, shopping, payment, etc.) and lock down everything in one app. This might work for autocratic regimes, that push this idea of an app, as it makes it easier to control everything, but in the western world we like to be individualistic people who like to choose for themself, stand our or diverge from traditions.
Currently in the west, there are multiple shops you can go to. If you happen to have a bad experience (product not at all like the picture, quality, etc.) you can give the app and the shop a bad review and never come back and try one of the others apps. If you have a bad experience inside a Everything App, where also is your communication with friends and the payment... how do you punish the app? No go to the shopping Tab anymore? Review a bad Tab on the appstore? If you leave all the tasks (shopping, communication, payment, etc.) separated in different Apps, you as a user keep more control. You can switch payments without affecting your communication. Imagine getting banned from paypal, whatsapp and amazon at the same time, because the TOS of this everything app. If you are not living in a autocratic state, you can choose (and should choose) and vote with your experience on what service is good and what service needs to go. If you live in an autocratic state, you might possibly can not choose from too much options, as your autocratic regime is trying to push this single apps, that they can control, into every sphere of your life. And if you do use something else, the autocratic state will find ways to make this a reason to have a closer look at you. Don't stand out. Do not diverge from the rest of the citizens. Or else you get the treatment. - I see how Elmo wants this tool on his belt.
The Everything App stand diametrical against the individualistic person belief and an open market. If it were such a great thing, people would have done it successfully in the last 15 years of App development in the West. But there is none of these Apps. Because it is not fitting in a democratic state where services are federated across the market and not vertically implemented in a single app. Its why we have homescreens where multiple apps can coexist next to each other. Is the best homescreen, a single page, with a single app, where when you go inside, then only the variety of possibilities opens up (calendar, calculator, messenger, shopping, etc.) or is this variety of possibilities not already happening exactly there: On the homescreen, in seperated apps.
He can try. But he will fail. Like he failed twitter.
It seems like what he wants to add is mainly real-world identity and payments. The US already has an 'everything app' that has that and social media, shopping, classifieds and payments - facebook.
It’s strange. In my limited perspective, it doesn’t work all that well in places where you have good choices. WeChat, Grab and Gojek has worked in their markets.
MYN is struggling in India. They do everything just a little worse than the leading company.
They do cabs but not as good as Uber. They do shopping but not as good as Amazon. So and so.
Someone like Amazon should be able to venture into most of these areas easily. But somehow dedicated companies do things better most of the time