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It's not just Facebook that "failed" to build the so-called superapps, none of Western private chat apps company had done it, let alone social media, or any app

It's not just Facebook that "failed" to build the so-called superapps, none of Western private chat apps company had done it, let alone social media, or any app from anyone with strong C-class leadership and lean bureaucracy for that matter. The way those "superapps" grow the "apps" is middle management doing his personal projects on corporate microservice infrastructure and IC hire upper management succumbing to bureaucracy. Thanks to bureaucracy, some brand integrity is maintained, and that kind of makes money anyway as company side gigs. After it goes garbage in and out of translation, the whole company doings end up on BBC as Oriental wonder superapps. SoftBank subsidiary owns LINE. So do Masayoshi Son even know how many individual sub-apps there are or who's under who running what? I highly doubt it. And I also highly doubt a control freak like Musk can even bear that kind of situation; he'd personally dragged out a server rack out of an NTT datacenter without going through rituals and ceremonies, which made a web article by itself. None of superapp operators seem to have that kind of boss.

bobthepanda 2y ago
the fact of the matter is that there are massive differences in consumer opinion. Western markets prefer specialist companies that do one thing really well, whereas in East Asia people often prefer trusted conglomerates. As a general example, department stores are much healthier in Japan and Korea, whereas in the US they were hollowed out by specialty clothing retailers, specialty makeup retailers, etc. and then finally kicked over by online shopping.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >As a general example, department stores are much healthier in Japan and Korea, Not only that, here in Japan some of the biggest department stores also operate their own train lines, and own all the real estate around the stations. It's an extremely different way of running a business than in the US.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    And none of it has a strong visionary figure leading the way. It's all committees and pork barreling. THAT churns out evergrowing list of features.
mschuster91 2y ago
> None of superapp operators seem to have that kind of boss. But they also don't have the shareholder/activist investor pressure that Western companies face. To achieve "superapp" size, you need to have either a strong leader personality driving the push by their sheer will and vision and especially with enough authority/financial power to overrule investors - people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg - or you need to be one of the Asian ultra-conglomerate/"chaebol" companies that have absurd amounts of money flowing through them that enterprising middle managers can divert. Unfortunately, with the exception of the visionaries I mentioned, corporate America and Europe just doesn't have many company founders with both clear visions and a backbone, and there's (partially "thanks" to de-conglomerisation trends of the 90s and later like with German giant Siemens) nothing at all left that comes even close to the diversification of revenue that Samsung has.

bobthepanda 2y ago

the fact of the matter is that there are massive differences in consumer opinion. Western markets prefer specialist companies that do one thing really well, whereas in East Asia people often prefer trusted conglomerates. As a general example, department stores are much healthier in Japan and Korea, whereas in the US they were hollowed out by specialty clothing retailers, specialty makeup retailers, etc. and then finally kicked over by online shopping.

shiroiushi 2y ago
>As a general example, department stores are much healthier in Japan and Korea, Not only that, here in Japan some of the biggest department stores also operate their own train lines, and own all the real estate around the stations. It's an extremely different way of running a business than in the US.
- numpad0 2y ago
  And none of it has a strong visionary figure leading the way. It's all committees and pork barreling. THAT churns out evergrowing list of features.

mschuster91 2y ago

> None of superapp operators seem to have that kind of boss. But they also don't have the shareholder/activist investor pressure that Western companies face. To achieve "superapp" size, you need to have either a strong leader personality driving the push by their sheer will and vision and especially with enough authority/financial power to overrule investors - people like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg - or you need to be one of the Asian ultra-conglomerate/"chaebol" companies that have absurd amounts of money flowing through them that enterprising middle managers can divert. Unfortunately, with the exception of the visionaries I mentioned, corporate America and Europe just doesn't have many company founders with both clear visions and a backbone, and there's (partially "thanks" to de-conglomerisation trends of the 90s and later like with German giant Siemens) nothing at all left that comes even close to the diversification of revenue that Samsung has.