We already have super apps, theyāre called Android and iOS.
Countries developed super app ecosystems because poorly localized software meant you canāt just install whatever you want off the app store and expect it to be in a language you know, able to work with your phone carrier, and able to work with your payment provider.
Itās about integration, the amount of actions it takes to do something in a single app is vastly reduced compared to having to juggle multiple apps. For example, you want to go out for food with your friends. With WeChat, you can message your friends, find a restaurant on the map, book it, etc. all completely seamlessly. This is a really good video explaining the benefits https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSMFnJnY7EA
Theyāre basically multiple apps built in to one. I donāt see how there would be an experience difference between going to your homeās phone screen to open a different app vs going to the super-appās home screen to open a different sub-app.
Like itās literally just replicating the functionality of the phoneās OS but in a single app. The only possible difference I can see is that the sub-apps are more tightly integrated with one another, but the same is basically true for apps from the phone/OS maker (Iām mainly thinking Apple here since thatās what I have, but Iām sure Android has similar with its built-in apps).
The ā4 appsā example is pretty wrong. You can pay someone directly in the iMessage app with Apple Pay, then order from whatever other app (also paying using Apple Pay). They included āyour mobile wallet needs to be updatedā as if thatās something you have to do every day just to pad the number of apps. In reality itās two apps, iMessage and the food ordering app. In WeChat itās probably the same, the messaging sub-app which probably also has the ability to pay someone directly, and the food ordering sub-app. (Although in both situations it would be more efficient for the boss to make the order and just have you pick it up.)
Apple Maps (and Iām sure Google Maps too) also has the ability to compare prices among ride share apps and go directly to the book screen of those apps like she said for Gaode Maps. It can also take you to a restaurantās page on a food delivery app.
Also, what she says at 3:03 is a pretty bad thing. In the US in most places you can pay with cash, card, and your phoneās built in tap to pay. Everywhere else is just cash and card because they havenāt modernized (or just cash because theyāre stingy about paying card processing fees). Being able to pay with cash anywhere is pretty important imo for multiple reasons, privacy being a big one.
On standard Android:
Iām chatting with my wife on FB messager. She sends a link to a restaurant I should check out. It opens in FB messenger html wrap-around thingy. I click the 3 dots. Tell it to open in the normal browser because it sucks in the FB messenger thing. It goes to the webpage and I can see the menu. I want to know where it is. I click the link for the map, then click the map to open in Google Maps so I can see where it is. I agree to new user Terms of Service. Now I can see the location. Cool, I can look at reviews, too. Nice. I go to book a reservation which means I need to open back the webpage. It tells me I have to download an app for that so I do that and set up an account and do that to book at this one restaurant because there are about 6 of these kinds of services and there is no telling which restaurant uses which one. Nice, itās all set. Then I open yet another app to get a ride-share and agree to their new terms of service (love how this seems to happen once a month in each app in the west). Now I can go eat at the restaurant. They take cash or credit but no apple pay/ samsung pay / google pay. Awesome.
So yeah, pretty much the same experience you get in China, I can see where they are 1:1.
EDIT: I have 3 different parking apps on my phone because there is no single one in my city. Depending on where you park itās a different fucking app. I got to the next city over for something? Cool, download a new fucking parking app.
The key difference is in the architecture. With the traditional approach, each app is a self contained unit of functionality that slaps its own UI on top. You interact with one app to do one thing, then you have to switch to another to do another, and so on. Crucially, they donāt have any shared context and itās not possible to compose functionality from different apps together in a meaningful way.
With the WeChat approach, you have a single UI framework, and apps are effectively services that plug into it. Now itās possible to have a shared context that spans multiple apps, and to pull their functionality into it. It basically facilitates creating workflows that involve multiple apps where each app is a component of the workflow. Itās a similar idea to the way Unix philosophy works where you have a bunch of command line utils and you can pipe data through them in a script composing their individual functionality.
This doesnāt have to be done using a mega app like WeChat, you could bake that into the OS itself, and I think it would actually be a very good architecture to do that. I think that the approach of coupling the UI to the business logic is the wrong way to go. Itās much better to decouple these things, and allow the user to create whatever workflow they want that fits their particular use case leveraging functionality provided by different apps.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
WeChat is the equivalent of emacs. I think people underestimate the advantages of super apps and their greater seamlessness compared to multiple disparate apps (which (often, but not always) give a disconnected, heteronormative, clunky experience) in an operating system.
This video/text (also this video/text) explains about emacsās advantages of integration and how it improves usersā tech sovereignty/autonomy well. WeChat and emacs have sums that are greater than their parts, and their gestalt form provide a more optimal experience than most gestalt forms of separate and disparate apps that donāt share a common language to communicate to each other.
As you mentioned in another comment in this thread, an operating system can fulfill this role, too. Linux and GNU coreutils, for example, can provide a similar experience to emacs as they are developed in a more homogeneous and cohesive manner and they use Linux as an integrated, uniform workspace, calling on APIs of the same ālanguageā.
Apps developed in privatized settings tend to venture off and create their own UIs and APIs that donāt work optimally with other private apps. Optimal experiences that WeChat, emacs, Linux, BSD, and the like create result from a collective effort where developers cooperate together and develop a cohesive environment. This is why a socialist society and governments in general create the wonders and innovations of civilization, whereas private companies simply piggyback off of those innovations which make their own products possible in the first place.
