Elon Musk, in his almost daily epiphanies, has the goal of turning Twitter into a super app. The billionaire owner of Tesla wants to create an app that does literally everything: order food, exchange messages with his friends, pay bills, etc. Perhaps this will be the future. However, isn’t that a lot of power for a single company (or person, for that matter)?

First, it’s worth mentioning that such a super application is a trend in Asia. The main reference on the subject is WeChat, from China, a cross-platform instant messaging service that allows you to make purchases, book flights and much more. Experts believe that he is the source of inspiration for Musk and his “western version”, which already has a name: X.

“A super app is just a platform that has a certain basic functionality, but also allows applets to be built internally so that users can have extra capabilities in a space,” explained David Shrier, a professor of Artificial Intelligence at a university from London. in England, in an interview with The Guardian????????

“What makes it simple is a single sign-on where users don’t have to keep typing in their login or credit card information,” he added.

The professor also stressed that he would not trust handing over virtually all of his life’s data and activities into the hands of a single application, especially one commanded by Musk.

“Many people have doubts [sobre o super aplicativo], including me. That’s why there’s been a backlash from Meta, which powers Facebook and WhatsApp, in an effort to launch a digital currency. I think there’s a larger question… when we give up our permissions for a super app, do we really know what we’re getting into?” Shrier said.

The main doubt – and, why not, fear? – is about the control a single app would have over a person’s life. With all a user’s data, the service will control which products and services he would see on his mobile phone, for example. The concentration of market power would make the oligarchies much more powerful.

Although the disadvantages of having one super application that does everything are very strong, the trend is that, as in Asia, the West has a cross-platform service to call its own. And Elon Musk took the initiative to own that version when he bought Twitter.

X: What will be Elon Musk’s possible new super app?

On his Twitter, Elon Musk said that the purchase of the social network was an “accelerator to create X, the app of everything”. It is known that the billionaire is a great fan of WeChat, the Chinese super app that brings together various online services.

It’s worth mentioning that, in August, Elon Musk responded to a follower by insinuating that he’d been planning the X for some time. The user asked if the entrepreneur would create his own social network and he only replied with “X.com”.

To learn more, visit the Olhar Digital report.

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Source: Olhar Digital