Even Elon and Zuck don't have the juice to make an all-in-one 'super app' happen | Hacker News Reader

Even Elon and Zuck don't have the juice to make an all-in-one 'super app' happen

businessinsider.com

9 pointsPaulHoule8 comments

Add PayPal functions to Twitter and it will juice the earnings to keep going forever. The idea that it has to be an everything app to survive is not valid. What it needs is a way to keep paying the bills and earn a profit. It doesn't have to be a powerful all app.

The question is: "is it a good fit?"

A chat app aimed mainly at 1-1 or small group communications has a clear path to being a super app. (WhatsApp... Also Facebook has a history of having an API for 3rd party apps that integrate with Facebook, one is left with the feeling that it is serious misconduct on Facebook's part that they screwed around with Libra but never took a serious stab at peer-to-peer payments.)

As Twitter is mainly about large scale group communications it seems adding payments to Twitter might get you something more like Patreon, Substack or OnlyFans.

Another trouble I see with Twitter is that a payment app has to be trustworthy... We're used to seeing warnings on Tweets that they might be "fake news" and Elon Musk seems to have a roughly 40% unfavorable rating these days [1]. The left-leaning half of the population is unlikely to want to send or receive payments w/ Twitter; many people on the right seem to squee as soon as they hear "TWITTER FILES" but feelings work like a ratchet and if his erratic behavior pisses off people on the right his favorables won't get any better.

[1] https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/ipoll/study/31120044/questio...

I don't know that just adding PayPal functions would solve anything. It'd just become yet another p2p payment provider that nobody really wants to use. Facebook and Snapchat have both added (and removed) similar offerings.

Adding a politically toxic messaging app to PayPal would make PayPal less attractive, not more.

This all in one super app existed before and it was called America Online. They sent floppy disks and CD-ROMs to every household in the country.

The problem is once everyone is there, it becomes uncool and people start to look elsewhere.

Right. They could make it, but they couldn’t necessarily get people to come or stay.

IMO the desire for a super app is a backhanded way of saying: this tech ecosystem that we've built? the phones, the apps, the complexity? I'm tired of it.

(but maybe that's just me)

They were all too busy asking if they could, to bother asking if anybody cares.

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