It’s so interesting to see the explosive fractal of the Internet collapse back into these singularity super apps in different cultures all over the world.

Obviously many in this community see that as a generally bad thing(me included) but the wide audience of none-tech people clearly gravitate very strongly towards it.

I throw it on the pile for evidence of “meaningful friction”, a concept that someone else has definitely already coined: that “some degree of friction or restriction brings positive benefits for things like art or community compared to unlimited easy access. For example very small data limits creating unique art or music in early game bit products.”

Quick research indicates that Jerry Hirshburg has coined it Creative Abrasion and MARTIN WEIGEL has blogged about it, but neither specifically bring the idea to the concept of communities.

Yes, it's very bad. And it's not organic. People in this very thread say that they have no choice but to use LINE. I don't know how exactly it rose to prominence in Asia, but for example in Russia people are now being forced to use the state-developed MAX. You only actually force a part of society - various state clerks, military, police, educational workers, schoolchildren, students - and they, together with their relatives, are numerous enough to leave no alternative for others by making it a de facto communication platform (while other messengers are incrementally blocked and require a VPN, which is a no go for the non-tech-savvy since regular VPNs are outlawed and blocked as well, and setting up alternatives like VLESS implies buying a VPS abroad - and the payment options are virtually all gone as well).

I believe this is the result of the current world leaders' agenda to close down and isolate countries and make as much chaos as possible by stirring local nationalism, setting up nations against nations, impeding international communication, perpetrating local atrocities while the rest of the world stands aside indifferent or doesn't even know the full extent of those, etc. And this scattered world will still be owned and milked by global entities, that's where the hypocrisy is.

If anyone's been living under the rock, I recommend that they check the news - too many rabbid talking heads are in a runaway warmongering mode now and have moved the Overton window enough to say in all seriousness that war between Europe and Russia, USA and China is not just possible, but inevitable!

You went off the deep end after your first sentence. I think it's best phrased as "first in, best dressed" for that demographic era. Sure, I don't use it as my main messenger but my family, relatives, and their friends do.

Off-topic but, what has prevented "super apps" from becoming a thing in the West? Antitrust laws? Infrastructure? Or just cultural differences?

IMO the superapp notion is a bit exaggerated. Lots of the Asian superapps superfeatures are just random buttons on random places created in decisions decentralized/scope creeping/workers overqualified/anemic management workplace that launch WebViews out of nowhere. The prerequisites are nonexistent leadership and smart yet business ignorant workers.

If you fill a few urban core skyscrapers to the brim with bunch of STEM/CS/CE uni grad kids, they'll start stuffing anything they are allowed to touch with super futuristic string theory thing for absolutely no reason. Someone's going to implement crypto mining feature on the live app. Others start doing LLMs working together with image generation teams while the image creation team with a quirky boss will have their own. That's how superapp gets created.

Also, Google is an American company, unless I'm grossly mistaken. You guys have a superapp and a superapp company already.

I think it's all due to Apple:

* Apple developer program is $99/year everywhere and making iOS apps without a Mac used to be impossible and is still difficult, so naturally there's more demand for miniapp platforms like WeChat and LINE in countries with way lower purchasing parity. LINE miniapps are booming now that the yen is so weak. But the West doesn't have this issue.

* Superapps typically grow out of chat and payment platforms and Apple owns such a massive share of that in the West. They're not going to build miniapps into Apple Messages or Apple Pay.

Isn't emacs the original super-app? :>

I always wondered if mobile networks/tarriffs had a factor in it. If the super-app negotiates with the carrier to get zero-rated, it gains an immediate edge over other free-standing players.