Elon is always obsessed with WeChat's model. (For those who don't know about WeChat, it is basically the name of the 'Everything app'.)
Everything in one single point is pretty convenient but has led to a bunch of risks...
Leave a risk that you know in the comment.
I'm not sure that I would put "everything" in Elon's hands... Feels risky
No one should hand out their 'everything' to anyone
I gave my everything to someone once, they said it wasn't enough. Now I only keep it in my hands.
I'm sure you're just a grower. She/he doesn't know what they're missing out on!
Elon is right to understand that the data of a successful everything app (which can only happen by monopoly) will give him vast power in tech. However, after failing to implement one aspect of it in an established market and after removing most talent from Twitter, how will anyone keep falling for his techno-Ponzi scheme?
Yeah, uhh we had that in the 1990s and it sucked:
Why do one thing poorly when you can do a whole bunch of different things even worse.
Lol, dude can't even run something like Twitter successfully, let alone an "everything" app. Not a chance in hell I would use it.
I was wondering if he would hire someone from China who previously runs "everything" app like Wechat. People should definatly look for alternatives
Wechat is so creepy. I mean you could just get caught in some misunderstanding of being labeled as a dissident and get cut off from basically all communications.
And even if you are just an innocent civilian, all it takes is one bad hack and now criminals have the data of 1 Billion people.
Convenience and marketing will always win at the end. We're heading that way anyway. People use Apple Pay and Google pay and don't think for a second what it means. Other forms of ID are going that way too. People want ecosystems without having to lift a finger. Just let big brother take care of everything.
What, you want to talk privately? Use cash? What do you have to hide?
Sure, I use them, but I have a good reason why I started using them. I lost my plastic 3 times in one year. I have a small kid, he's glued to me, whether it be the market or the playground, doesn't matter, he's always with me. He distracts me all the time (aways asking questions), so I just forget to take my plastic sometimes 🤷.
So, even though I was against it, I decided to use Google Pay (now Wallet). I rarely forget my phone (only when I leave home, so it's at home), plus it's big and bulky, you notice it missing sooner than a piece of plastic.
If there are any FOSS alternatives, I'd gladly use them, but as far as I know, there are none 🤷.
That's my point tho. I get it that technology can be complicated and not everyone can, wants or needs to learn everything relevant about it.
But the way it works out at the end, is that someone figures out to solve some truly trivial problem, and in the process siphons all your data and choices away.
Oh no, I can't figure out the 3 buttons on a music player. Solution: have a multibillion conglomerate listen to all your conversations on an off chance that you want to play a piece of music.
Oh no, I need to raise my hand to turn on the lights. Solution: have a multibillion conglomerate control everything in your house via an online service they control and can shut down on a whim.
Oh no, I'm clumsy and keep losing an essential thing. Solution: have a multibillion conglomerate go through all your purchases and identity at all times.
Oh no, my phone has like, 6 buttons. That's too much for lil ol' me! Solution: Have two multibillion conglomerates dictate you how to use your tech, which at the end becomes just as complicated yet dumber and 6x as expensive than what we had 15 years ago.
I dunno, at what point is the solution not worth that tiny inconvenience?
You can like, put your payment card in your phone's case. Heck you can even put bank notes in there.
On the other hand, Google/Apple Pay are both pretty great products that replace a horrendous legacy payments system. Recall that for like 40 years the most innovative consumer payment system looked like this. And it was essentially a duopoly as well (Visa/Mastercard).
At the end of the day, cash is still a thing as well.
Well, some countries indeed still commonly use payment systems from 50 years ago. That's pretty bizarre. I remember hearing about PayPal 20 years ago, how revolutionary it is, and I didn't quite get what the big deal is. That's because all around Europe we had secure online payments (secure against theft and such, not against the bank snooping) since the late 90's, and chipped cards even earlier.
But anyway yea... In person, cash is king. Let's keep it alive. Some countries are planning to phase out cash, and that really is only because we're letting it happen due to our lazyness.
He's a decade late on that. I don't see people wanting one app having that much of their information being constantly collected in the background. Then again, millions of people agreed to Threads' data harvesting so...
Most of the are celebrities, they make money from giving up their privacy right.
We already have an "everything app", it's called a fucking browser rofl
If an application has tracking and censorship software that is tied to a country's government, then chances are I'm not gonna use that app, especially if China's government is involved. This is why I hate WeChat.
Besides, an "everything app" basically just defeats the purpose of having an app icon collection on your home screen. I like how colorful it looks, and I don't want that to be taken away.
We're just getting further and further into dystopia at this point.
Why even have an OS for the everything app? What if we made the app itself into an OS?
Also: Does an everything app contain itself?
I'd argue that Windows from Win98 - XP was trying to be an "everything app"
This was highly unethical and didn't work
I don't trust Musk with anything, let alone everything.
As soon as a company offers 'ease of use' for anything, it'll try to get everything it can get their hands on and use it to their own advantage.
Zombo com is an everything app. You can do anything at Zombo com.
The only limit is yourself at zombocom
Shit, I deleted my Twitter account when Musk bought the company. I’m definitely not going to create another one to use X.
Why would you put yourself into an obvious dead end street? People already have problems leaving whatsapp for better messengers. People have a hard time quitting their amazon-addiction, even though there are many alternatives out there. Imagine you put all your eggs in one basket (messenger, shopping, payment, etc.) and lock down everything in one app. This might work for autocratic regimes, that push this idea of an app, as it makes it easier to control everything, but in the western world we like to be individualistic people who like to choose for themself, stand our or diverge from traditions.
Currently in the west, there are multiple shops you can go to. If you happen to have a bad experience (product not at all like the picture, quality, etc.) you can give the app and the shop a bad review and never come back and try one of the others apps. If you have a bad experience inside a Everything App, where also is your communication with friends and the payment... how do you punish the app? No go to the shopping Tab anymore? Review a bad Tab on the appstore? If you leave all the tasks (shopping, communication, payment, etc.) separated in different Apps, you as a user keep more control. You can switch payments without affecting your communication. Imagine getting banned from paypal, whatsapp and amazon at the same time, because the TOS of this everything app. If you are not living in a autocratic state, you can choose (and should choose) and vote with your experience on what service is good and what service needs to go. If you live in an autocratic state, you might possibly can not choose from too much options, as your autocratic regime is trying to push this single apps, that they can control, into every sphere of your life. And if you do use something else, the autocratic state will find ways to make this a reason to have a closer look at you. Don't stand out. Do not diverge from the rest of the citizens. Or else you get the treatment. - I see how Elmo wants this tool on his belt.
The Everything App stand diametrical against the individualistic person belief and an open market. If it were such a great thing, people would have done it successfully in the last 15 years of App development in the West. But there is none of these Apps. Because it is not fitting in a democratic state where services are federated across the market and not vertically implemented in a single app. Its why we have homescreens where multiple apps can coexist next to each other. Is the best homescreen, a single page, with a single app, where when you go inside, then only the variety of possibilities opens up (calendar, calculator, messenger, shopping, etc.) or is this variety of possibilities not already happening exactly there: On the homescreen, in seperated apps.
He can try. But he will fail. Like he failed twitter.
It seems like what he wants to add is mainly real-world identity and payments. The US already has an 'everything app' that has that and social media, shopping, classifieds and payments - facebook.
It’s strange. In my limited perspective, it doesn’t work all that well in places where you have good choices. WeChat, Grab and Gojek has worked in their markets.
MYN is struggling in India. They do everything just a little worse than the leading company.
They do cabs but not as good as Uber. They do shopping but not as good as Amazon. So and so.
Someone like Amazon should be able to venture into most of these areas easily. But somehow dedicated companies do things better most of the time
Only reason WeChat works is because it's built up by the government as the only option to spy and control people. There's literally no other objectively successful everything app and it's not going to happen in the west unless we really let our guard down. The only thing that's close to this in the west is Apple's ecosystem and they basically got grandfathered in because they "make their own hardware" or whatever lobby bullshit is being thrown.
Everything app has been attempted many times. Every time it ends up wors than the sum of all of it's functionalities. We already have an everything app - it's the web browser.
I have seen like 10s of everything apps in the Indian market and they die eventually ! People stick to the aspects of the app what works for them !
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