• chaorace@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    87·
    1 year ago

    Man, Elon’s got one hell of a boner for WeChat, huh? I honestly feel embarassed for him. WeChat is WeChat because it’s Chinese – there is no secret formula for Elon to steal. The circumstances which created WeChat simply do not exist in the west and IMO it should stay that way.

    • ShakeThatYam@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      Tbf, I think he has wanted to have an everything app going back to his PayPal days. I still think it’s a stupid idea for the American market.

      • SuperDuper@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        There’s an entire plotline in Startup where the main character is desperately trying to create an everything app after seeing someone in an Asian country with 1 app on their phone.

        Spoiler alert - most of the development staff ends up quitting and it bombs on launch because nobody in the West is remotely interested in an “everything” app.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zoneEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        It exists. It’s called android! Honestly though, that’s why Google developed it. They wanted to maintain control and stay as the primary Internet portal for mobile users. Banking, messaging, gaming and productivity all passes through them.

        We chat has similar in China but only because competitors were stifled. It won’t work in the west as competition for any aspect will be better for some people and anticompetitive behavior will be clamped down on even if it started to work.

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zoneEnglish
            3·
            1 year ago

            It’s not the same. It’s Elon thinking it can be with an app, but it can’t. It’s google realising over 10 years ago that to have that level of control in the western markets, you need to have an entire platform, not an app. Elon can’t even get Twitter to do one thing well, let alone all the things.