Friday, October 07, 2022

Musk's Everything App

 https://www.marketingdive.com/news/elon-musk-Twitter-deal-lawsuit/633401/


This week saw Elon Musk recommit to his purchase of Twitter. There are various theories as to why he chose to reengage - perhaps the most compelling being the ironclad purchase agreement he entered into that would have probably been tough to fight against in Delaware chancery court. 

 

The most interesting news to come out of this development, however, was Musk’s announcement that Twitter would be part of superapp, called X, that would mimic superapps popular around the world, particularly in Southeast Asia. Apps like WeChat, which started as a messaging app and slowly developed into a mini-internet, allow users to shop, send money, order food and many other daily activities. Some statistics show that users of WeChat spend almost 1/3 of their waking time on the app. 

 

Though the idea has some potential, it will be interesting to see how consumers respond. Asian consumers have become used to using a superapp for all of their daily activities from the time they first acquired their phones. But will American consumers, who have been using different apps for different functions, will they be able to adapt (or even want to) to an all-in-one app? Besides privacy concerns, consumers might find that services within the superapp are worse than individual apps. There also might be heavy regulatory push back against the idea of such an app. Regulators already feel that firms like Facebook and Amazon exert too much power over consumers and a superapp would only garner more attention. 

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