This is the real reason WeChat exists and that there's no equivalent (or market for one) in the west. The built-in apps on iOS and Android for messaging, payment, mapping, photo storage, and so forth serve the needs of a majority of users while consolidating market power for the platform operators Apple and Google.
These integrated experiences had gaps in China, which were filled by Tencent, which then became a sort of virtual platform operator, essentially running its own virtual set of built-in apps on top of foreign-made operating systems.
There's no market for a replacement for a built-in app suite in the west so long as the existing ones are meeting users' needs, which is why we haven't seen Facebook succeed at this. I'm not sure where Musk thinks this market for the "X app" is going to come from.
Agreed. Given the headline main thrust it's a shame so many are effectively forced to using one out the duopoly already.
Some compulsively "modern" countries have in practice made subjugation before either Google or Apple mandatory for full functionality in society. Identification, payment, access to information about common goods, etc, have already been burdened with an abundance of friction for someone who's not constantly carrying one of these tracking and monitoring devices.
A phone is a physical purchased good though, that sets it in a whole different category, you can't prevent someone from getting a phone, generally, and he has freedom to choose how to use it.
The implicit requirement to have a phone is a whole different matter that can be argued about, but that conversation is also about mail addresses or bank accounts and even further away from what the article comments on.
Redefining who controls different parts of the ecosystem. For example, making it so apple mail is not the main controller of email on iphone, or the app store being the main controller for getting apps onto the device. It's just put everything in one app, and then have control.
It's not very creative, and is really just a centralization play.
