Yes, but the question was “does this exist anywhere other than in China?”
China is a pretty specific and unique market. Perhaps the existence of such an “everything app” is related to that, explaining why it doesn’t exist elsewhere?
Yes, they exist elsewhere. Check out Grab (southeast Asia), Line (Japan, Taiwan), Kakao (Korea), Gojek (Indonesia), PayTm (India) or any number of everything-apps.
Telegram moving in this direction very fast. At this moment, telegram is used as news, blogs, file transfer app, chat etc. Recently added miniapps with real payments integration, "stars" as internal currency
Yes, very few countries have a app where you can do "everything" in it. "This clear definition is really hard to achieve, therefore it must mean something different" is not a counter-argument.
I observe that these applications which are everything apps almost always have integrated payments platforms. This is not always the case, but seems to be the stickiest part of the offering. My thesis is that a competitive application with a integrated payments platform will eventually outcompete the ones without. Payments are possible in China with WeChat which is dominant. Payments are possible in India and Brazil with WhatsApp which are their dominant markets.
Counter-examples would take the form of markets/countries where there are multiple-domain applications with payments platforms that rapidly lose or lost marketshare to multiple-domain applications without payments. Markets where no popular application has payments provide no information as to the relative value of a integrated payments platform.
> I observe that these applications which are everything apps almost always have integrated payments platforms
But this is essentially a sample size of 1?
There’s definitely an advantage to having integrated payments if you want to do “everything” (most of which requires or is related to payment of some kind).
But IMO you’re missing the forest for the trees: adding a payment button to an app is essentially integrated from the PoV of the user - you can do it with Apple Pay or google wallet seamlessly. So why isn’t this good enough?
That lacks payments between friends, so that’s the most important factor? But then in most first-world countries you’re now competing against banks (old and new), who solve this really well, and a myriad of country-specific shit. That’s why they don’t exist.
So really, it’s not just “payments” - it’s becoming the common digital medium of exchange, and that can only happen now for very large, single currency markets that are starting to transition from an unbanked cash based society to a banked one.
You can’t just shove payments onto WhatsApp and expect people to use it to pay their utility bills in a market that has established and seamless ways to do this already. Why would companies make changes to support this?
Because if you integrate with Apple Pay or Google Wallet then iOS or Android become the platform that delivers tailored applications, not your "everything app". Almost like that is exactly how it currently works in much of the world.
You are arguing in the wrong direction. You think I am arguing that supporting payments is a compelling feature for get customers. So, logically, you just need to add the ability to do payments in some way. My argument is actually that a robust payments platform is the moat needed to prevent your "everything" app from fragmenting by preventing your users from going around or under you. A lower level platform that provides a low friction means of payments for delivered services undercuts the coherency of the higher level platform since applications can be delivered around you.
So your examples actually support my argument. Payment platforms like Apple Pay and Google Wallet attached to their service delivery platforms, the app stores + OS, make it hard to lock people into "everything" apps because the OS is the "everything" app. Efficient inter-account transfers prevent "everything" apps from locking users into their payment ecosystem. If you do not have the payment moat, you are left with actually competing on features and delivery of services which is really hard to do across "everything", so you are better off focusing instead of trying to make a "everything" app.
WeChat is most definitely an "everything" app in the sense of this discussion: messaging, shopping, money transfers, bill payments, cab hailing, transportation (planes, trains, etc.), utilities, hospital appointments, customer service, news, etc. etc.
Source: I used it for years in China at the time it evolved into the "everything" app
Yes, and that's exactly why it's factually incorrect to paint WhatsApp as the "everything app" for either a specific market or even "the world excluding the US".
> It’s the “everything app” for messaging, friends and groups.
It’s the “everything app” for messaging, friends and groups.