WeChat is an anomaly and not proof of anything. It only works in China because the Chinese government controls who can and can’t operate, and thus can pick winners and losers.

If suddenly everyone with a better take on a service that a theoretical X “everything app” offered couldn’t operate without applying for a license and possibly never getting it or having to find a domestic partner to operate in every country they want to do business in, then yeah this X app would take off, because it would be essentially the only option.

Since that will never happen, then an everything app will never exist outside of countries that exercise end-to-end control. This is also why American tech companies outside of entrenched operating system vendors and hardware companies (think Apple & Microsoft) have a hard time making inroads there. Because if you get too popular and it’s something they can copy, then suddenly the Chinese copy gets all the market advantage and boatloads of funding, and you get shut out.

That is a good example, but as the other commenter pointed out I dont think you can compare weChat with Twitter. Twitter is a startup trying to make money from it’s service. WeChat is a tool for the chinese goverment to track each persons chats, money transactions and purchases, and as such will pretty much receive all the funding it needs. Being profitable is not the main objective of WeChat.

Of course WeChat dominates china when they ban other apps from even operating. WhatsApp can’t operate there. Facebook is entirely banned in fact. Twitter is blocked as well.

Amazon failed to get a foothold due to complex regulations restricting them, which forces them to shut down their marketplace there.

So you can’t really compare that to a much freer market.