[HN Gopher] Super apps are proliferating across emerging markets ___________________________________________________________________ Super apps are proliferating across emerging markets Author : ycafrica Score : 192 points Date : 2022-09-17 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago) (HTM) web link (afridigest.com) (TXT) w3m dump (afridigest.com) | aunty_helen wrote: | Rappi. Massive app in Latin America. | | The level of usefulness and convenience is astounding. I ordered | some items I forgot to get at the supermarket the other day, | arrived in 4 minutes. In my home first world country, next day | delivery is touted as a massive success by execs on linkedin. | | For how powerful Rappi has become, not only did they beat Uber | Eats completely out of Colombia (their service just isn't at the | same standard anywhere), but they also beat McDonalds who tried | to go exclusive with their own app for a year before coming back | to the platform. | missedthecue wrote: | Rappi is great. I use it almost every day. I love how you can | order cash from the ATM right to your door. Does that exist in | US delivery apps? | [deleted] | axg11 wrote: | Uber Eats has to build a model that works worldwide, including | in the US, Canada, UK, EU, etc. where unemployment rates are | relatively low. I don't think same hour delivery will ever be | long-term sustainable in a country with low unemployment. | | Emerging economies are a different story. Unemployment is | usually high so there's an abundance of workers to power the | logistics behind these super apps. | jorvi wrote: | > I don't think same hour delivery will ever be long-term | sustainable in a country with low unemployment. | | In Europe we have something called 'flash orders', where your | groceries are usually delivered within 10 minutes. Way | crazier than same-day. Like you said, it does make one wonder | if those companies (Gorillas, Flink, Getir) will ever be | sustainable long term. | gfarah wrote: | I second this. I use rappi about 1-2 a day. They attracted a | bunch of users using their delivery platform and now they have | expanded into dug delivery, car insurance, plane tickets and a | bunch more. They are currently trying to break into financial | services (now really sure how well this last one will play out | though). | hulitu wrote: | > When users shook their phones in a specific way, they'd be | connected to others on the Weixin network who had shaken | | Compare that with Whatsapp which want access to your phone number | and contacts. | djbusby wrote: | This feature was in Bump in 2008. | KaoruAoiShiho wrote: | I kinda hate how the "across emerging markets" superapps are just | the last paragraph and the 98% of the article is about wechat | which everyone already knows about. How are those superapps doing | in other markets? That would be interesting information. | vinibrito wrote: | Here in Brazil they are not as powerful as WeChat is in China, | but they are aggressively growing and pushing the market. But | they are largely a business push force, not a market pull | force. | noobermin wrote: | Grab is doing okay I suppose but it feels like "just another | app" in SEA, and is mostly used by people for hailing rides. | The payments are there but very few vendors actually use it. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Can't think of any super apps that are doing well in India, and | that's a huge market. Our most popular messaging app is | Whatsapp that only does messaging. Our most popular payments | app is Google Pay that only does payments. | toast0 wrote: | India likes its protectionism. You're not going to get a | superapp from outside. Maybe Jio would do one? | poopypoopington wrote: | WhatsApp is becoming a super app through the buildout of | business messaging. You can now do your shopping in India | using the JioMart store on WhatsApp.[1] | | [1] https://about.fb.com/news/2022/08/shop-on-whatsapp-with- | jiom... | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Remains to be seen whether it sees any adoption. Cross | selling has been incredibly hard in India. | MomoXenosaga wrote: | Apple is trying to push out the banking system with their | payment system. | neodypsis wrote: | There have been many attempts to replicate the "super app" | phenomenon that is WeChat. | solarmist wrote: | Wasn't Line the predecessor super app? | mathverse wrote: | Not really. Line is a fork of Kakaotalk but now these two | dont have much in common. | | Line is also quite successful in Thailand and Taiwan. | numpad0 wrote: | LINE was a clone, not a fork. | | I'm not sure about timeline of superapps/in-app-apps | though, I ... think mobage(moba-gay not mob-age) for i-mode | phones, was one early example of a portal with messaging + | apps. LINE replicated that with iOS apps, but more generic | apps were only implemented in 2019. Either examples were | rather simplistic games only. Bot-based text interfaces | similar to various SMS self-serve systems existed for LINE, | but I believe those were not offered as apps. | | WeChat might have been influenced by those predecessors, | but as far as I can see, in-app mini-apps are understood to | be a phenomenon originating in China and Southeast Asia, | even in Japan. So it might be a stretch to call it a | predecessor or pioneer in superapp, more like one of | precursors. | solarmist wrote: | Ah, yeah. Precursor is a better word. | lifthrasiir wrote: | I think you are pretty much right on all counts, probably | except for the very definition of super-apps. I think the | original article used the term for an app that can serve | for multiple purposes, not necessarily open to 3rd | parties. If we follow this definition Kakaotalk or LINE | are definitely super apps, but WeChat can be considered | as the second generation super app. (Third party apps in | Kakaotalk or LINE are still pretty limited in this aspect | to my knowledge. Kakaotalk in particular seems to have | assimiliated any third-party interaction into its | chatting platform.) | [deleted] | solarmist wrote: | Also Japan. | | But No, I mean the first widely used app that does all | kinds of different things. | | Not literally a predecessor. | itake wrote: | My day job just built a WhatsApp bot to interact with customers | because our super app was too big for low-end devices. Meta also | subsidizes internet for WhatsApp in developing countries, so they | don't have to only use the service on wifi. | amadeuspagel wrote: | A different theory: | | The ultimate super app is the browser. | | The browser is dominant in the west, because we started using the | internet with desktop computers, where a website was the ultimate | way to reach people. | | When mobile started, everyone had to have an app. Surfing the web | on mobile at the beginning didn't work that well. At the same | time installing apps was a lot easier then on desktop. | | In the west, the app model matches the website model. Most | popular apps started as websites, later made an app - facebook, | youtube ... | | In emerging markets, they "skipped" the desktop, started with a | smartphone. | | Installing apps is still more of a hassle then visiting websites, | so a super app makes more sense then a super website. | ryukafalz wrote: | Agreed, but the browser never got the identity/contacts bit | down. So what would be a relatively simple social app when you | can rely on your existing social graph becomes much more | complicated and loses out on network effects when it has to be | its own completely independent site. | | Now, I'm not saying we should have this as a centralized app | either. The closest and most interesting thing I've seen along | these lines in a decentralized approach is | https://spritely.institute/ | amadeuspagel wrote: | Maybe email could be integrated into the browser better. | enos_feedler wrote: | I agree with this theory somewhat. I also think the browser had | the runway to become the ultimate open mobile super app, but | dropped the ball. For reasons we may never figure out, the | browser never evolved beyond its initial incarnation. A mobile | browser today is mostly just tabs that view shrunk down web | pages. I am still waiting for a true mobile first web | experience. This might even require a new kind of web page | format. | amadeuspagel wrote: | I'm waiting for a web first mobile experience. I don't think | web pages are the problem, mobile operating systems are. They | should, fundamentally, just be browsers. The desktop has | space enough for two layers of operating systems - "the" | operating system, and the browser. But on mobile that's too | confusing. | enos_feedler wrote: | Agreed. Data privacy and security is so important, | especially on mobile since it's our wallet, camera, etc | that we need the system to help with permissions, data | management etc. It is redundant to have a browser layer AND | an operating system layer manage these separately. | dahdum wrote: | > For reasons we may never figure out, the browser never | evolved beyond its initial incarnation. | | The reason is simple, the 30% app store profits. Very low | incentives for either of the 2 major players to improve | things, and tens of billions of reasons yearly to slow things | down. | enos_feedler wrote: | You can't blame the app stores or the mobile platforms. The | truth is that _anyone_ could re-imagine a web browser and | build something brand new and become successful | distributing through the store for free. | amelius wrote: | Exactly. | | Still, what happened to FirefoxOS? | rakoo wrote: | It was forked into KaiOS, targeting feature phones and | allowing devs to use web technologies for building apps. | pca006132 wrote: | But super app is more problematic than browser: They are closed | gardens, you don't have any alternative. | enos_feedler wrote: | I agree with this problem but it doesn't refute the point | being made. This is just an unfortunate consequence of how | history has played out. There is no rule or guiding north | star in the open market to "limit closed gardens". This is | just a philosophy that a minority of people hold. | immigrantheart wrote: | Seems the usual HN crowds that are worried of centralization and | monopoly praising these super apps. What am I missing? | ak217 wrote: | This article is trying to explain the rise of super-apps in China | through the lens of user experience, but I think a more likely | explanation is government regulation and platform moderation. In | Western markets, Apple and Google use app moderation to forbid | apps from doing too many different things at once, so as to | preserve their platform advantage. Also, in Western markets, | companies that develop apps are wary of developing super-apps | because they anticipate exponentially more attention from | regulators the more things their app does. In China, Apple was | worried they'd be shut out of the market so they ceded some | control over the platform by allowing super-apps; Google never | had much control over their platform; and regulators are more | concerned with protectionism than preventing abuse. | cuteboy19 wrote: | Even in India all the super apps failed spectacularly. | pcl wrote: | > In Western markets, Apple and Google use app moderation to | forbid apps from doing too many different things at once, so as | to preserve their platform advantage. | | I've never heard about this before. Is this an official policy | of either company? Do you have any citations to share for more | reading? | digitaLandscape wrote: | revolvingocelot wrote: | Er, do you think that Apple and Google are going to come out | and say "half of the point of our respective app stores is to | be able to strike down app-based competitors and reave 30% of | their take"? It may not have even been Apple and Google's | _intent_ to have app stores serve thusly, but it 's clear | that that's what's happening. | | >Do you have any citations to share for more reading? | | I suggest the works of Stafford Beer, a cyberneticist known | for the quote "the purpose of a system is what it does". | 7speter wrote: | I imagine theey also don't want to have to deal with these | super apps eating up significant resources on their | devices, and even ultimately, having to make their devices | serviceable (both technically and ideologically ) to one or | a few pf these super apps. | noahmasur wrote: | I've mostly seen this for game platforms on iOS: | | https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/valve-apple-wont- | let-... | | I think it's waffled back and forth on game streaming: | | https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357771/apple-cloud- | gamin... | | https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/9/22826297/microsoft- | xbox-x... | | Netflix also has to offer their games as separate packages: | | https://www.whathifi.com/news/netflix-games-will- | reportedly-... | xcambar wrote: | I've missed a career opportunity to lead a super app for the | Indian market. I truly regret it of course but I'm thankful at | least for the truly enlightening conversations I've had the luck | to have, with people having large scale jobsian visions and the | means to achieve them. | | It reinforced my appreciation for hiring processes, when one can | be lucky enough to meet true leaders with exceptional visions. | spaceman_2020 wrote: | Are super apps actually working in the Indian market? I know | Paytm has tried so hard but its not really gained much traction | outside of payments. | mannymanman wrote: | Why did you not take that offer? | Bubble_Pop_22 wrote: | China presence is significant in emerging markets | Dig1t wrote: | My question is, how do super apps actually work? On iOS, does the | WeChat app actually download an iOS app bundle and execute it? Or | does it do something like a browser and execute some kind of | markup + interpreted language like JavaScript? | | If it's the former, I thought Apple banned apps in their App | Store from doing that. Seems like maybe they made an exception | for WeChat..? If so does that exception only exist within China | or also in the US? | pxeger1 wrote: | Apple don't ban web browsers from the App Store either, so I | guess their ban is not very strict. | ryan-c wrote: | > Apple don't ban web browsers from the App Store | | They do, in fact, ban web browsers other than Safari. | | I know what you're going to say - "Chrome is available for | iOS". It's just Safari with a different UI. All the parsing, | rendering and javascript runtime code is Safari. | ajkjk wrote: | It's a complete fucking pain, too. | alwillis wrote: | Just to be clear, because apps aren't allowed to run | untrusted code (like random JavaScript in a JIT) via | interpreter or compiler, any app that shows web content has | to use WebKit-based APIs. | | And while WebKit is the HTML and JavaScript engine that | Safari uses, browsers on iOS are quite different than | Safari. | | I often use Brave because I like the UI and it blocks | trackers etc. out of the box and certainly has features and | UX that's different than Safari's. | | In my day to day usage, it makes zero difference that | Safari and Brave use the same rendering engine on iOS. | slaw wrote: | I use Brave on iOS too, but it is inferior to real | Firefox + uBlock Origin on Android. | chazeon wrote: | It's the second case, markup + JS. | neither_color wrote: | WeChat mini apps are javascript model/controller with a markup | view https://github.com/apelegri/wechat-mini-program-wiki Think | angular & Vue instead of react. Each page has a js, json, | stylesheet and xml. | | You can technically hack one together but there's an annoying | process of getting verified before you can use the IDE and test | something on a phone. You also can't really publish anything | and see how it goes without a serious plan and a Chinese | national ID. There's a small scene of foreigners contributing | to wechat apps and even starting some but ultimately control of | the app is through a national. | RC_ITR wrote: | The joke ofc is that browsers are the original super-app, | just more poorly monetized (I guess thank pmarca for not | being _that_ good atexecution) | nomay wrote: | The Android Wechat app came bundled with a years-old fork of | webview, coz the Android scene is a total mess, various vendors | not only never update their system apps, but actually | substitute it with their custom versions, this made it unusable | and a "Chinese Webview" necessary, so wechat got one, all of | Tencent's services use it plus plenty of third party apps, | since almost every Android 5+ phone has the latest WeChat and | their WebView fork. | | So this situation almost made their platform mentality an | inevitabily, now they only need to define a set of principles | for then to be a mobile OS. | | I'd say their applet thing can do 99% of the things a | standalone app could, but the development speed , reach and | functionality you can get is unmatched, best of all, it's the | one true unified cross platform OS: on Android, iOS and | Windows, but Chinese market only. | | So it's not a super app, it's a mobile OS. | LudwigNagasena wrote: | Siri/Alexa are super-apps but with literally zero discoverability | of features in their UX. | enos_feedler wrote: | Siri is just an alternative front end to your phone's touch- | based UI. So is iOS also a super app? | bee_rider wrote: | Xorg, the original super-app. | oriolid wrote: | Or super apps are just a second launcher on top of the iOS or | Android launcher, but the app selection is controlled by the | super app's maintainer, not Apple or Google. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Siri is not, almost every request I give it results in a google | search. | vishnugupta wrote: | I worked on two super apps for a good part of the last decade; | one in India and one in South East Asia so here's my take based | on those experience. | | As the article points out, most of the are trying to apply the | playbook of WeChat. IMO it succeeded because they built an | enormous user base which has a terrific daily engagement. Once | daily engagement is cracked it becomes not all that hard (but not | trivial) to add more use cases. P2P payments, file sharing, and | you name it. | | However, in India and SEA the companies tried to go the other | way. To take Indian example, most of the fintechs in their quest | to increase engagement began adding chat. However, by then people | had adopted to WA so it miserably failed. But they still kept at | it and added more fintech related use cases; to take PayTM as an | example one could do just about anything around payments with | that. Insurance, toll payments, utility payment, pay to merchant, | pay off EMIs, investments and what not. So they did achieve | decent daily engagement. | | Grab has been trying to do the same. Going from Taxi app to a | generic payments app. It's all about engagement. | | It's an enormous investment though. Not only about rolling out | features but also to build two sided market places (example; | merchant payment requires onboarding merchants too), onboarding | utilities etc., However the profit from them are minuscule | despite good utilisation because the recipient of the payment | (like merchant, or utility providers) isn't going to give away | their share of money. | | So, in the end all the fintechs resort to lending which is the | biggest chunk of profit generator. It's a shame that the article | doesn't mention it. | seydor wrote: | because other apps are too complicated , too greedy, full of | popups, and other 'cool things' that techies consider de rigueur | these days. Command line interfaces are always the best | 3qz wrote: | > Every aspect of a typical Chinese person's life, not just | online but also off is conducted through [this] single app Every | aspect of a typical Chinese person's life, not just online but | also off is conducted through [this] single app | | What happens to people that get banned from WeChat? | nomay wrote: | You are shut out, and with the latest CCP censorship measures | you are forbidden to creat accounts "web-wide". | | So I guess you should just keep your mouth shut other than | harmonious online activities to avoid that doomsday situation, | like me, I never use WeChat or Weibo to do anything other than | keeping in basic touch, since you don't know which mundane word | would become sensitive, trigger the censors and get you banned, | there's no appeal. | jon-wood wrote: | I suspect life gets very difficult. When visiting a supplier in | China a few years ago I tried to buy a coffee from the place | downstairs and eventually had to get someone from the supplier | to do so because they had no method of ordering and paying | other than a WeChat app, and as someone without a Chinese bank | account I was unable to pay for anything via WeChat. | yep31 wrote: | What happens to web developers that get banned from the | internet? | user_named wrote: | Long article that doesn't provide the answer to its own title, | but a lot of nonsense. | | Wechat is not a super app, it is a browser. | | It is popular because China is mobile first, you search within | wechat instead of in a browser because the web is not mobile | first but apps are. | helloworld97 wrote: | wodenokoto wrote: | That's like saying the Apple App Store is a browser. | helloworld97 wrote: | idle_zealot wrote: | It's more like saying that iOS is a browser. But that's | precisely backwards. iOS is an operating system. Browsers are | also basically operating systems. Superapps also behave like | operating systems. This is probably where the "superapp is | like a browser" sentiment comes from. | lelandfe wrote: | > Wechat is not a super app, it is a browser. | | ...and a payment service, and a search app, and a messaging | app, and a social media service, and a video calling platform, | and a VOIP calling service, and a video sharing platform | [deleted] | anubiskhan wrote: | All things I can do in my browser | chazeon wrote: | Except that right now simplified Chinese contents are dying | on the open web due to the walled gardens these super apps | built. There are also payment and some government services | now must be done in these super apps in China. | ElCheapo wrote: | Now go and see how many APIs Google Chrome has | lelandfe wrote: | All of those things I named are built by WeChat and live in | the app, first-party: WeChat Pay, WeChat Moments, WeChat | Channels, WeChat Out, etc. | | "You can technically visit any site you want" is really not | an apt rebuttal to an app that contains a multitude of | first-party features. | ElCheapo wrote: | WeChat is controlled by the government. They don't need | an open ecosystem: if the government mandates an app then | everyone will use that app. It's completely unnecessary | to implement some kind of public facing API to offer the | functionalities to supposed third parties. There are | none. | lelandfe wrote: | It is an "open ecosystem" if I am understanding your | meaning correctly. You can make your own ("mini") | programs for WeChat. I presumed that's where the original | "it is a browser" comment stemmed from. | | I was trying to point out that the super-app label stems | from the bevy of _first-party features_ WeChat has built | in. There aren 't real analogs to that in the western | world (Facebook would like to be one of them). | | That the government has their hands on their scale is | orthogonal to this discussion. | ElCheapo wrote: | Google as a whole (especially in America) has a slew of | services entirely comparable to WeChat. The problem is | not many people use them. | | They have phone and internet plans, they have mobile and | desktop OSs, they have self-driving taxis, they have | email, they have IM, they (had) a social network, they | have a payment system, they have cloud storage and | computing, they even have actual phones and computers. | Sure, they miss a couple of things like a marketplace, | but if US citizens somehow were forced to use all-Google | devices they would definitely do everything with Google | Search, Google Duo, GMail and Google Pay just like the | Chinese do everything via WeChat. In that case obviously | Google would integrate all their services even tighter by | allowing almost everything to be done through their IM or | email, but right now they are much more similar to WeChat | than you might think | lelandfe wrote: | > Google as a whole... has a slew of services entirely | comparable to WeChat | | > they miss a couple of things like a marketplace | | Really all there is to it. Google offers disparate | services instead of bundling and lacks essential parts of | WeChat (e.g. commerce, social media). | | The comparison comes up short. | refurb wrote: | I hate super apps. It made me appreciate the simple and clean UX | of apps developed in the US and Europe. | | Nothing worse than opening up Shoppe or Grab and immediately | being slammed with 3 dozen icons that you need to scroll through. | | Hell, even my banking app looked like that. Select "other | requests" and I get to scroll through about 40 different icons | for stuff to do. And they just offer banking. | | Apps like Grab offer banking, transport, food, digital wallet, | etc. | | Seems super clunky to me, but what I've been told is the goal is | for that app to do "everything" so you never need a different | app. | lawgimenez wrote: | Our family uses Grab app a lot and yes the dashboard is a mess. | At one point Grab has games in it too. | hestefisk wrote: | Grab also has / had a built-in messaging functionality. The | UI is a sad mess. | unsupp0rted wrote: | The other problem with super apps, at least where I am now, is | a quarter of the functions don't work, or work but break the | viewport, or work but put the app into an unusable state until | you hard reload it. | | The more functions there are, the more testing that needs to | happen and doesn't... "in emerging markets". | hestefisk wrote: | This is exactly what the DBS app is like as well. | mathverse wrote: | Superapps are a deadend if you dont have a huge population like | China that is comfortable with centralization. | seydor wrote: | because there are fewer monopolies in the western internet? | mathverse wrote: | Simply because westerners dont really want to trust one | single corporation. | seydor wrote: | They don't? Apple and google exist | mathverse wrote: | That's nowhere near what WeChat is for chinese people. | | Both Google and Apple can be totally ignored but you need | WeChat for everyday life in China. | seydor wrote: | that s not what we re talking about though. There is no | indication that people are not using Applepay and | GooglePay because of trust concerns, it's because it is | not available widely | foxhop wrote: | super app: "covid zero", red/green QR code app controls | human movement in China. | micromacrofoot wrote: | yeah we prefer the illusion of 2-3 conglomerates | lukasb wrote: | Great article. Was reading through thinking "okay so why aren't | super apps popular in the west?" and lo and behold, they tackle | that question brilliantly. | intrasight wrote: | "super app": a browser within an "app" that knows who you are and | knows how to move your money around. | miki123211 wrote: | The truth is, traditional, western mobile apps really suck, and | create a lot of friction. Some of that friction only exists to | maintain Apple's and Google's competitive advantages (think web | browsers being overly limited), but a large part of it exists | because we choose privacy over user convenience. | | As I understand it, weChat mini apps have the ability to reliably | identify their users and keep their data across multiple devices, | with no accounts and no user interaction. Imagine opening an app | for recipes, adding a recipe and knowing that it's always going | to be there, no matter the device, with no signing up, no | figuring out a password, no complicated login screens, nothing. | You open an app and it just works. | | Same thing extends to payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay aren't | terribly popular with users as they require extra steps to set | up, and in app purchases have ridiculous fees and can't be used | for goods sold outside the app. | | The only western system that ever came close was probably | Minitel[1], which was just too outdated technologically to | survive the age of the modern internet. iCloud would also be a | competitor if it worked cross platform. | | [1] https://afridigest.com/super-apps-in-emerging-markets/ | baby wrote: | > weChat mini apps | | I always said that Facebook can innovate in different ways: | | 1. use their already existing social graph to produce OTHER | apps that are useful | | 2. use their tool with a new social graph | | Number 2 has been done once I believe. It's called workplace. | Number 1 is what Wechat is doing on steroids, and Facebook has | done almost none of that. It's insane that they're not taking | advantage of this and are just adding noise to the useful tool | that facebook used to be. | [deleted] | greenonions wrote: | You're forgetting that Facebook can see the future and | everyone is wearing helmets and gloves and living in a | digital world that looks like a mobile game from 2008. | MomoXenosaga wrote: | Facebook owns WhatsApp. It baffles me why they haven't | turned that into Western WeChat yet. | jacooper wrote: | They are doing it, just slowly and not worldwide yet. | | Want to see peak WhatsApp? Check out the version of | WhatsApp in India. | Ozzie_osman wrote: | I've built startups both in the US and in an "emerging market", | so I'll offer some of my own answers here. | | 1. Consumers are less tech-savvy, so having a single app as a | starting point makes everything far easier than having to install | many apps. | | 2. Brand is much more valuable. In emerging markets, with | (overall) less regulation (and self-regulation) of markets, trust | and brand carries a LOT of weight. If I trust company X with my | payments, I'm also more likely to trust them with my | transportation, my food delivery, etc (than having to | verify/trust a new party). Having a trusted brand makes it very | easy to expand into new verticals. | | 3. Regulatory clout. Once you have the scale (or political | connections) to navigate regulation in one vertical, it's much | easier to apply that to new verticals. You might "know the right | people", know how to navigate the bureaucracy better... or in | some cases, it's just easier for the government to trust you with | a license than someone who's unknown to them. | | 4. Talent is more sparse, so clustering it in one place tends to | make things more efficient. | | 5. Funding might be hard to come by, but existing companies | either already have the cash or have connections to investors. | | Overall, these things in combination just make it a lot easier | for an existing company to launch a new vertical than for an | upstart to do so. With time and as markets evolve, you'd probably | expect more specialization to occur, but by then the super apps | may already be entrenched enough to defend themselves. | | For similar reasons, family-owned conglomerates tend to be very | successful in emerging markets and span across a variety of | unrelated industries. You just bought a place in a housing | development built by a company owned by wealthy family X, then | you go to the supermarket to buy some milk but you're not sure | which brand to trust... Then you see the carton manufactured by | another company from family X. | vishnugupta wrote: | > span across a variety of unrelated industries | | Lippo group[1] is one such conglomerate in Indonesia. During my | stint at a company of SEA we partnered with one of their | subsidiaries, Ovo. At that time I wasn't aware of Ovo's parent | company and the extent of their reach. A visiting exec said | that Lippo group has enough businesses to cater to a person | from birth to death. Later I found out he wasn't joking, they | own hospitals as well as graveyard and everything in between. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippo_Group | nilsbunger wrote: | Ooh, I like the analogy to family-owned conglomerates. Also not | something you see a lot of in the US because of the structure | of US finance. | dc-programmer wrote: | Awesome insights, thanks for sharing | brightball wrote: | In the US the "super app" was probably AOL. | signal11 wrote: | Facebook is effectively a "super app" already. | | * Friends' posts | | * News | | * Pages (manage your business and engage with customers) | | * Discussion | | * Marketplace -- huge for some people | | * Groups -- huge for some people | | * Probably other functionality I've no idea about | | (Of course, I happen to think it does a terrible job of its | original purpose, which is friends' posts, but clearly lots | of users use it anyway...) | tschwimmer wrote: | It's not even close to these super apps outside the states. | You can renew your drivers license in WeChat. | p_l wrote: | IIRC You can sue someone in civil court, get through the | whole process, get a sentence and get paid compensation | when you win, all in WeChat | GordonS wrote: | And perhaps Compuserve for the UK and Europe. Ah, makes me | feel nostalgic, I loved Compuserve! | majormajor wrote: | I think the constant discussion and investor focus around stuff | like "when will we get a super app in the US" is ignoring a lot | of these factors that I think are pretty path-dependent. Once | you build up the app/services ecosystem one way or another, | there's a ton of inertia to overcome vs building this up from | scratch in a new market. | meltyness wrote: | It'll be fine as long as they write and maintain perfectly secure | software and infrastructure, and stay competitively up to date | and performant. | ryandrake wrote: | The article (and the embedded NYT video) seem to imply that | WeChat is not just a dominant app, but is pretty much the only | way to do things in China. For example the quote, "try and pay | with cash for lunch, and you'll look like a luddite." | | So, what if you cannot use WeChat? Or if you're banned by their | AI (which happens all the time with western apps)? Or if you | simply choose not to? There must be other ways to book rides, | hire services, pay people, chat, E-mail, and so on.. I (in the | West) opt out of using Facebook+all FB properties, Twitter, | Google, and so on, and I still have the full ability to live as a | normal person. Surely China has cash and the ability to book | things over the phone...? | nomay wrote: | COVID measures made WeChat a must have for anyone except | toddlers, since you need to show your green COVID qr code to | enter public spaces, and almost any Chinese had done one if not | daily obligatory mass testing, in which various WeChat applets | are required. | | You can live perfectly fine without it before, buy you simply | can't legally live in China without a working, updated and | ready-to-open WeChat now, since last year. | | The CCP also did their whole national census on a WeChat | applet, it's the defacto governing tool. | beorno wrote: | My take after 20+ years in China living with WeChat and Alipay: | | 1) Green field: no or few incumbents or legacy platforms or | regulatory capture to deal with - infrastructure in the West is | antiquated and fossilized in comparison. | | 2) Open to change: People and businesses are living in a world | that's extremely cut-throat and dynamic, and so they expect | change, and are willing to try new things - the West is more | conservative in comparison (e.g., the proliferation of QR code | use cases seamlessly bridging offline/online that never took off | in the West except when force by CVOID). | | 3) Free pass from platforms: Due to "be nice to China" Apple has | turn a blind eye towards WeChat and Alipay running an app store | inside of an app (which has always been against their | regulations, and which MANY companies would like to do). | | 4) Hard work and (used to be) cheaper labor: 996 super-hard work | ethic means they churn out features and blitz scale really well - | they're just more aggressive. | | 5) In touch with the offline world: Companies in China have to | deal with the reality of an extreme variety of users, from cities | to countryside, from young to old, from rich to poor. They often | build out big sales and support orgs of people walking around | from store to store, across the country, whereas I think many | startups in the West (often due to cost reasons) tend to do | almost everything online. | | And increasingly: | | 6) Government support. WeChat is pretty much the ERP system of | China today. You can do everything through/on it. In some ways | it's a utility. I guess every country could benefit enormously in | terms of control and efficiency by having an platform that | provides authentication, authorization, and payments as a base | layer for all other apps. The government puts people / teams / | divisions inside of organizations to ensure things are "running | smoothly", but this works best if they have a few big companies | to deal with - not a myriad of small startups. WeChat and Alipay | are becoming more and more nationalized, and are already "too big | to fail". | | I miss not having WeChat in the West, though I'd of course wish | it was done in a less 1984-ish way. Life has ballooned in | complexity, and bureaucracy has gotten out of hand in the West... | We need a radical streamlining in order to regain back our | productivity (and not waste time filling out checks, waiting in | line, calling/faxing, filling out forms, etc). Super apps, if | done well like in WeChat's case, can offer that . | | (I grew up in Europe, spent 20 years in China, and now living in | North America.) | actionablefiber wrote: | Does 996 yield better results than typical 9-5 work? I can't | help but think that at that level of time investment, | particularly for knowledge work, you are getting negative | marginal benefits on time spent at work. | Macha wrote: | The 4-day workday movement is testing the opposite | hypothesis, and I've heard of a few tech companies testing | the waters with e.g. time limited half day fridays (marketed | as a post-covid recovery or summer perk). The questions are | what they took from the results and whether they'd be willing | to be seen to take risks with their biggest cost when the | expectation is for a recession. | jhatemyjob wrote: | It's just (3). Apple doesn't allow them outside of China, so | they only work in China. That's all there is to it. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-17 23:00 UTC)