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Comment by jlundberg | Hacker News Reader

And not only speculation, he tweeted this in October 2022:

”Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app”

Forgive me for being stupid, but why would any consumer want an "everything app"? It's not exactly a compelling need I've ever heard anyone express.

Yes, multiple things can be combined, but if it works, probably just coincidence.

We already have "everything apps" - it's called a browser. I would indeed be missing that if we didn't already have it.

I can also imagine how people might find it convenient to have essentially browser, messaging and payment combined into a single thing (essentially WeChat) they can use instead of a variety of separate apps/accounts.

But I'm also sceptical anyone can make that happen in democratic capitalist countries without insane amounts of investment.

Ok, the browser I buy and agree.

But outside web-browsers, I'm not sure it is anything anyone wants - like you imply, in China it's probably handy, because it is a reliable route into all the services that are blessed by the CCP, which means you avoid running into firewalls & thought police.

> why would any consumer want an "everything app"?

1. Everyone else has it

2. You can pay with it anywhere (pay in shops, pay people, pay online)

The Apple and Android app stores are everything apps.

"Everyone else has it (China)" doesn't make me want one.

It’s called the network effect.

Twitter, Facebook and WeChat are mainly valuable because others have it.

You may be immune to the network effect, but then again, you’re commenting on Hacker News. :-)

Smartphones saw rapid growth in China at the same time as mega-apps formed. The tech giants that built these mega-apps also acquired many consumer services that used to be independent companies and integrated them into the mega-app over time. Then out of the interest to compete with each other, these tech giants kept making their own mega-app larger in order to capture more user activity within their ecosystem of services. The emergence of mega-apps in China was not the consumer's choice.

I'd say that Elon's claims about the future are highly speculative as well. After all, he's the same guy who claimed there would be a million Tesla robotaxis on the street by the end of 2020. I think it's more useful to look at them as PR statements and ask what effect they were intended to have.

At this rate it'll be the nothing app.

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