Elon Musk’s tenure as owner of X, formerly Twitter, has certainly divided opinions. We won’t go into all the changes the world’s richest person has made to the microblogging platform here, but it’s undeniable that Musk has ambitious plans for the social media platform. In fact, calling it a microblogging platform is incorrect, as X places a lot of emphasis on videos, long-form posts, and audio (Spaces). Musk’s plans will ultimately revolve around payments, as he has developed applications for payment services in many countries and US states. He wants X to be the home for everything you do, including financial transactions. This has been dubbed the Everything App.
Musk did not invent the idea of the Everything App, quite the opposite. But it is an interesting endeavor, not least because some critics believe it would be impossible to create such an app. We are used to having a wealth of choice on the Internet, and many of the applications we use complement each other. For example, there will be no problem shopping on Amazon using PayPal. While these are competing companies, they work seamlessly together in the Internet ecosystem.
China has an everything app
Nevertheless, there are signs of other everything apps, especially in China. WeChat is like Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft Teams, Messenger and PayPal all rolled into one. With well over a billion users, it is certainly a successful example of an everything app, but different competition rules apply in China and the blueprint may not necessarily be transferable to Europe and the US.
A recurring issue is that companies are less successful when they focus on multiple products rather than a single one. X itself has faced this criticism in recent years, as Musk removed one of the key features that made Twitter so successful – its brevity through character limits. But it goes further. Some experts believe that too many dishes on the feast can lead to a dilution of quality. It follows the adage of choosing a tool that does one job well rather than a multi-tool that does multiple jobs adequately.
Dedicated gaming platforms are characterized by
To explain, Netflix now offers gaming, as does YouTube. Both platforms decided to add gaming to broaden their appeal, and the games are fine. But do serious gamers play there? Not really. Gamers will opt for dedicated platforms as these offer tailored experiences. Going even further, we can look at subgenres of gaming and entertainment, where gamers might visit sites like Hello Millions or Written Realms. These platforms do one thing – a specific type of gaming – and they do it well.
Musk sees the future of X as having elements like financial trading. This has caused a lot of excitement in the X trading community, especially among crypto traders, but the same rules apply as for the above gaming example: experienced traders would prefer to trade on dedicated platforms with years – or even decades – of experience. Buying stocks on X might have some advantages, but it’s unlikely to have proprietary trading software, so the disadvantages would likely outweigh the advantages.
To achieve his goal, Musk also needs to look to where others have failed before. And the best place to start is rival social media platform Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has made several attempts to turn Facebook into a general-purpose app. Some of these have been successful, including Facebook Marketplace, while others, like the cryptocurrency Libra, have been expensive flops. But by and large, the attempts have been futile. Facebook doesn’t feel like a general-purpose app, even if it has some features that are outside of Zuckerberg’s original vision.
We are used to switching between apps
The irony, of course, is that not only is it difficult to entice people to use a general-purpose app, but there isn’t even a definitive social media app. How many readers have access to Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, and Snapchat? Most of us have accounts on more than one. And that’s the problem: Each platform does something different, and they do it well. Some may target different demographics, but focusing on specific areas improves the experience.
These days, many of us are used to using separate apps for different activities. You might use Gmail for work, WhatsApp for friends, X to keep up with politics, Netflix for entertainment, and Robinhood for trading – do we really want them all under one roof? Many of these apps integrate seamlessly, and switching between them rarely feels like a chore. App developers always ask what problem their app is supposed to solve: And it feels like the Everything App is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist.
