this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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Of course it works. See WeChat in China.
But I doubt it’ll be X that will make it work in the rest of the world.
WeChat is an anomaly and not proof of anything. It only works in China because the Chinese government controls who can and can’t operate, and thus can pick winners and losers.
If suddenly everyone with a better take on a service that a theoretical X “everything app” offered couldn’t operate without applying for a license and possibly never getting it or having to find a domestic partner to operate in every country they want to do business in, then yeah this X app would take off, because it would be essentially the only option.
Since that will never happen, then an everything app will never exist outside of countries that exercise end-to-end control. This is also why American tech companies outside of entrenched operating system vendors and hardware companies (think Apple & Microsoft) have a hard time making inroads there. Because if you get too popular and it’s something they can copy, then suddenly the Chinese copy gets all the market advantage and boatloads of funding, and you get shut out.
That is a good example, but as the other commenter pointed out I dont think you can compare weChat with Twitter. Twitter is a startup trying to make money from it's service. WeChat is a tool for the chinese goverment to track each persons chats, money transactions and purchases, and as such will pretty much receive all the funding it needs. Being profitable is not the main objective of WeChat.
The Chinese government can track any app in their country. Their laws just give them acces to the data if they want it (the same as the usa basically). They don't give a shit about WeChat.
They give a shit about banning competitors
Sure, but withg wechat you can link each user to the real person, bank account, phone number and find his friend circle on we chat. This might not work so well on other apps where any user can sign up via vpn and a random email address...
Of course WeChat dominates china when they ban other apps from even operating. WhatsApp can't operate there. Facebook is entirely banned in fact. Twitter is blocked as well.
Amazon failed to get a foothold due to complex regulations restricting them, which forces them to shut down their marketplace there.
So you can't really compare that to a much freer market.