Evaluate the upsides and downsides of building a super app — an app having all major B2C features including entertainment, e-commerce, food ordering, hotel booking, cab booking, chat, holiday planning, gaming, med ordering, service booking, etc.

Question

Evaluate the upsides and downsides of building a super app — an app having all major B2C features including entertainment, e-commerce, food ordering, hotel booking, cab booking, chat, holiday planning, gaming, med ordering, service booking, etc.

The given app can be built-to-launch either in a single go, or can be built-&-launched in an incremental manner. Question is more around should a company having extremely deep pockets attempt to build such an app or not? Why/not?

Asked at Google over a year ago

13.8k views

& 3 other companies

Asked at

& 3 other companies

13.8k views

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Eli Marcus

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Sep 6, 2020

Evaluate the upsides & downsides of building a super-app (an app having all major B2C features including entertainment, e-commerce, food-ordering, hotel-booking, cab-booking, chat, holiday-planning, gaming, med-ordering, service-booking, etc.)?

Clarifying Questions

1. When you say app – what do you mean – web app, phone app, something else? – I assume the answer to all will be - you are the PM, you decide. (I think this question is pivotal – In my head I’ve already started going though a list of pros / cons and then it hit me that Google is already building this app – it’s Google assistant. At first, I was thinking that the design of a traditional phone app would be a mess (I got hung on the word app) – different tabs / tiles / cards for each section too many choices…. But if it’s a voice app….)

2. Which company is going to offer all these services? I assume the answer will be this app will broker out the services to multiple service providers?

3. What is the reason for building the supper app – I assume the answer will be - you are the PM?

4. Who is building the app? I assume the answer will be Google.

5. We are building a supper app but I still want to know if I should consider any constraints? I assume the answer is no – just evaluate the Upsides and downsides

Criteria	Upside	Downside	Conclusion
Google Mission – Generally Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it accessible and useful	A super app if done right has the potential to bring much of the world’s information into a single location and that is very Google		Upside
Google Mission – the next billion users	A super app if done right has the potential to service a broad consortium of users. Within each set of functionalities, we will need to evaluate the personas and make sure that we hit major use cases and enough edgier cases to make it useful.		Upside
Usefulness	It would clearly be very convenient to have a single place to go as a user. Today I have individual apps - open table, Amazon, Uber, Lyft, Skype games. Having everything in one might be handy.	Today I have all these apps on my phone I can download the service that best fits my needs I can choose between What’s App and FB Messenger or Skype. I can use uber or lyft or both.	Draw
Convenience – see above it would be convenient to have a single ap			Upside
Huge BI and opportunities for AI	With all consumer behavior moving though a single App data on individual behavior and group trends would be more possible than ever. At the individual level we can see the behavior of a user across their actions and make recommendations. Given huge sets of other user data we can make better predictions based on similar users’ patterns		Upside
Privacy	By putting data in a single place there is less points of vulnerability – in a multi app environment each app and company is a point of vulnerability.	Privacy will be a big concern. Today users may believe that they have greater privacy by splitting their actions into discrete apps spread across multiple companies.	Downside – generally I think the public and the media will fall in line with big brother not it is safer consolidated.
Design	This is really going to be a key factor. At first, I thought this would be a huge negative. However, as I worked the question I realized how this was already happening. Google Maps leads to restaurants, restaurants lead to reviews, which leads to reservations, which leads to taxi hailing. I also realized that Google Voice Assistant is also the foundation of this app. With Google demoing restaurant reservations via voice assistant, and already having features like call assist, map assist – we are already going down this path	This is really going to be a key factor. At the top of the problem my mind started racing on two negative factors design was one. I immediately went to classic app design and started thinking about multiple tabs, cards, titles, swipes to navigate from area one to area two – if you the app is simply a bundle of apps then design could be really hard to use.	Upside if done right.
Development / scalability		As you create a fully integrated app with seamless transitions between one set of functionality and the next - the code base will expand and updates to any specific area will need to be checked against the system as a whole – this means that dev and release times will expand and new functionality may decrease over time	Downside
Specialty vs generality		Today I can download the app that most fits my needs. My persona and user needs may be different from the general population and unless the functionality covers my user needs a general supper app may be a watered down version that only covers core use cases – which is fine until your use case isn’t covered and then because we as human focus on negatives more than positives – we may grow to dislike the supper app in whole.	Downside
Competition other companies	As I’ve been working on the problem it is becoming clearer to me that other companies are working on this already – Amazon has shopping, groceries, grocery delivery, video, music. Facebook has news, social, chat, shopping. Google developing a super app is clearly important as part of market competition		Upside
Competition market		Today we live in a fractured world of choices. Where we as users are free to pick the solutions that best fit our needs. This free market rewards useful innovation. In a world of super apps the table stake for entry may be to high for these companies to enter the marketplace and we may end up with monopolies which most economists generally think are bad.	Downside

As I’ve been working on the problem it is becoming clearer to me that other companies are working on this already – Amazon has shopping, groceries, grocery delivery, video, music. Facebook has news, social, chat, shopping. Google has multiple services, search, maps, chat, restaurant reviews, restaurant reservations, taxi hailing, Shopping. Google deliveries these though multiple apps but you already see integration. Maps links to restaurants, restaurant reviews, restaurant reservations, and taxi hailing. And of course we already see Google’s Smart Assistant, Alexa and Siri moving in this direction. In general given that design seems to have been overcome by having single purpose apps like maps that then branch out and integrate to other services and that technology is moving towards voice that leaves the pitfalls of privacy, development scalability, specialty vs generality and market monopolies. Privacy will be a concern regardless. Development scalability as well as specialty vs generality are already being overcome as part of the culture of organizations like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. Finally as long the market allows organizations like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple to remain intact and accepts that the competition between these organizations overcomes the concerns of monopolization then we already see the trend of the super app becoming a reality.

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A

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productmanager1644 · Answer 1 · 2021-01-18T18:01:03+0000

Clarify:
1. Is this super app built by Google? Assume yes.
2. Is this app for a mobile device or a specific channel (desktop, iPad, etc.)? Assume mobile.
3. Is there a strategy / goal that is motivating Google to build this app (ex. gain new users, increase revenue, etc.)? Assume I as the PM will have to choose this goal. (This answer is tailored towards the goal of getting more users and consequently being able to run ads / drive revenue.)
Describe the Product: Google is building a super app that meets all of a user's needs in the B2C space. Within each of the categories listed, there are many builds needed to meet the customer's needs. For example, within the "entertainment" category, Google could build virtual / digital entertainment: movies, etc. or it could build ways to book movie theatre tickets, play tickets, etc.
Strategic Evaluation Framework: I will evaluate the upsides and downsides of this app based on this high level framework:
1. Alignment to Google's mission
2. Strengths (broken further down by strengths for Google and strengths for user)
3. Weaknesses (broken down further by weaknesses for Google and weaknesses for user)
4. Opportunities for Google
5. Threats to Google
Strategic Evaluation:
1. Alignment to Google's Mission:
  1. Google aims to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible / useful. A super app aligns to this mission in that the app brings brings together all sorts of information and makes it accessible to the end user. The user can access all this information in a single space.
  2. Google already has a diversity of apps (ex. Google Docs, Gmail, Google Photos, Google Maps), which make it seem like it's already working towards the super app mission of bringing together all sorts of information and being needed in the user's life. A super app seems like an extension of their work.
2. Strengths:
  1. GOOGLE STRENGTHS:
    1. INFORMATION: Google already has access to a lot of information (ex. Google search), which it can leverage to build this app.
    2. PERSONALIZATION: A super app gives Google more access to user data, which allows them to build a better personalized experience for the user, which enhances user experience.
    3. AD REVENUE: A super app provides Google more opportunities to serve advertisements to users, which drives revenue for the company.
    4. USER ENGAGEMENT: In a giant ecosystem, the user is more likely to engage with other aspects of the app they may not have before. For example, if a user goes into the app to purchase an item through the eCommerce store, they may see Gaming within this app and may decide to explore Gaming after their purchaes.
  2. USER STRENGTHS:
    1. CONVENIENCE: User has 1 place to go for everything, which is convenient. There is no need for multiple apps.
    2. TIME SAVE: User saves time by avoiding multiple apps and bouncing from app to app.
    3. SEAMLESS EXPERIENCE: The user experience is likely better because the user does not need to do redundant actions (like login, authentication, update payment information, etc.) because hypothetically the features of the app should all talk to each other / share information
3. Weaknesses:
  1. GOOGLE WEAKNESSES:
    1. TEAM:
      1. RESOURCES: The super app build requires multiple resources / forces expertise in many areas.
      2. TEAM PARTNERSHIP: All these partners will need to coordinate well, and given the number of resources required to build such an app, it could be difficult.
    2. COST: It would be a high cost to Google to maintain all these experiences in one app.
    3. TECH LIMITATIONS:
      1. CONTENT LIMITS / QUALITY: There may be limits to how much you can physically build into a super app, so experiences may be less up to par in terms of quality.
      2. CONTENT RENDERING: It takes time to render a lot of content. A slower rendering time will be a poor experience for the user.
      3. MEMORY / RAM: This app will likely require a lot of memory / storage on Google's end and the user's end.
      4. SERVER REQUESTS: With a super app, there will likely be a lot of users / lots of server requests at the same time, which increases the likelihood of the app crashing.
    4. LEGAL:
      1. RULES / REGULATIONS: If this app were to run in multiple countries (assuming yes), there are a number of legal implications / rules and regulations that the app would have to adhere to across markets. It will be difficult to ensure compliance for each app feature across every market.
      2. DATA SECURITY: Google will have to take extra precautions to ensure that the user data is safe across multiple features. Given the breath of the app, it may be harder to do so. (For example, is my payment information secure in both the Gaming feature and the eCommerce feature.) If there are third party partners, Google will have to ensure that each third party (assuming there may be a lot), is using data securely.
  2. USER WEAKNESSES:
    1. DATA SECURITY: User may be concerned over giving all their data to Google. They may also want to understand who has access to my data, and given the breath of the app, there may be a number of third parties that have access to this information, which the user may not like.
    2. UI: User may be overwhelmed by too much app content. (Design here is paramount to avoid user confusion.)
    3. UX: It will be a poor experience for the user if the app is slow or crashes a lot because of the volume of information.
4. Opportunities: Google has the opportunity to gain a bigger footprint / gain more users. Ultimately, more users, will allow them to run more ads, which drives revenue for the company.
5. Threats: Within each of the apps features, there are already big tech companies that present sizeable competition. (For example, within eCommerce space, Shopify is a big competitor.) There are also big tech companies already taking steps towards becoming the "super app" to the its end users. For example, Apple has expanded its reach with apps like Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple Fitness+, etc. Amazon has also expanded it's reach as well. It's moving from being a traditional mass online shop to offering experiences, like Amazon Prime Video, etc.
Summary: Overall, I think a super app is in line with Google's mission, and it is already building multiple apps that allow it to integrate in multiple aspects of a user's life. Given the tech limitations, I believe a mobile super app is likely not the right approach for Google to take. This app may be better suited in a different channel, like desktop or voice. (Within the mobile space, it may be better for the app to be split into multiple apps.)

Chetan Channa · Answer 2 · 2021-06-26T07:25:53+0000

Ask Clarifying Questions

--------------------------------

I am assuming question is more on if this should be done and pros and cons and not how ? Yes
Also the app would be done by Google ? Yes
The intention is to include major B2C features irrespective of the fact if Google does it now or not ? Yes

Approach

-------------

Whenever such decisions need to be made, it needs to be evaluated at multiple levels. This is how I would go about this.

Evaluate if such an app aligns with vision & mission of the company.
For each of the stake-holders, I would look at the Upsides & Downsides.
1. Stakeholders are Google As a company itself.
  1. Strategic Evaluation - I would use Porter's Five Forces to check business environment to see if this is a sound strategy.
  2. Business Evaluation - I would then look at how this app can impact Google in terms of revenue, costs and other intangible things
  3. Execution Evaluation - I would then look at Strengths & Weaknesses that Google have which can impact execution.
2. Product, development, QA and Engineering Teams
3. Consumers

Let's evaluate these one by one

--------------------------------

Evaluate if such an app aligns with vision & mission of the company

Google's mission is to organise the information and make it more accessible and useful. The super-app if done right has the potential to make information easily available to consumers. The app definitely aligns with Google's vision.

Upsides & Downsides For Google

---------------------------------

Strategy Evaluation

Criteria	Comments	Type
Competitive Rivalry	There is a huge competitive rivarly in the space. First of all there are incumbents which are doing one thing really well and secondly biggies like Amazon also are getting into super app	Downside
Supplier Power	Since lot of these things will involve getting data from other third party sources, the partners/suppliers do carry some power. Latest eg being in Australia where google was not allowed to publish news. So partners can team up and shout 'monopoly' to get some power over google.	Downside
Buyer Power	Buyers have no power except the fact that they can delete or not use the app. They can't dictate terms to Google	Upside
Threat of Substitution	There is a major threat of substitution. But if done right, google brand name is strong enough to make users switch to google app.	Neutral
Threat of New Entry	While the threats are there, Google can safely ward of new competitors	Neutral

Business Evaluation

Criteria	Comment	Type
Get more users	Get more users on the app. By having a super-app , Google could attract more users . Users prefer to have lesser number of apps	Upside
Open up newer revenue streams.	Get new revenue streams. This app could open up newer revenue streams for Google. For eg it could take commissions from hotels if booking is done via this app	Upside
Increase Ad Revenues	Google will get access to more users and more categories for advertising.	Upside
More Data of more Users across categories	Google would be able to collect more behavioural data which they can then use in advertising business and personalisation leading to higher engagement.	Upside
Privacy & Legal Aspects	Getting into a super-app might open up plethora of privacy & legal issues mainly around collecting user data as well as creating a monopoly	Downside
Cost	Lot of the feature in super-app require google to venture into heavy operations	Downside

Execution Evaluation

Criteria		Type
Product & Engineering	Google is capable of getting this executed but would be challenging	Downside
Operations	For lot of these features, there is a heavy operational aspect which Google hasn't done in the past. So this will require a heavy investment in getting the right expertise to make the individual features of super apps successful.	Downside
Business & Partnerships	Provided that app is build, Google would be able to to do the right partnerships to get the required data as well as make the app profitable	Upside

Upsides & Downsides of Product, development, QA and Engineering Teams

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Criteria	Comment	Type
Ease of Designing	While it would be difficult to design such an app, it can be done	Neutral
Ease of Building & doing enhancements	Building such an app and that too in scalable manner would definitely be a challenge for engineering.	Downside
Ease of Testing & Maintenance	Testing effort would also be huge. It would get even more complicated if components of app are not independent enough and one component impacts another	Downside

Upsides & Downsides For Consumers

-------------------------------------

Criteria	Comment	Type
Convenience	A super app would definitely be super convenient for the users as most of the users prefer to not have many apps	Upside
Ease of Use	More features mean more complicated UI and UX. This can be partially handles by a good UX	Neutral
App Size	App size is a major concern and there is corelation between app size & downloads. Due to so many features app would be big in size. This can impact users as they will not like to download	Downside
Switching to another app	Since super-app is not solving a new problem, users may need to switch from individual apps they have been using	Downside

Recommendation

------------------

While this is not asked, if you look at above analysis, it looks like that the idea of super-app is right from strategic and business points of view but its success would lie in overcoming the execution challenges. So I would actually start small and look at categories which can be 'easily executed', develop expertise and then think about adding everything

michaelng78 · Answer 3 · 2021-02-04T14:31:45+0000

Clarifying questions:

This is a mobile or web app? I’m going to assume it is a mobile app
Going to assume the user base is global

Will evaluate both sides based on some dimensions that would be useful to stakeholders:

Revenue upside
User experience
Execution - technical and logistics
Competitive differentiation

Upside:

If we are able to ship an app of this magnitude I think revenue would definitely increase a lot due to the many areas that the app can service. Execution of the app is key since the user experience can seem very convoluted and complicated with many use cases tied into one. To recognize the revenue upside, the execution and user experience has to be great
From a user experience side - users could potentially find the utility of a app like this pretty useful. A single vendor to order and receive services for. This is not as far fetched as one would think. Consider Amazon - they do grocery delivery, e commerce retail with all kinds of products, develop their own clothing line, hardware business, streaming music/video services
- ANother benefit from for the user is that they obtain customer service from a single source for all their services. A concierge service that offers higher levels of CS could be an added stream of revenue
- Another benefit for users would be that these businesses are often complementary - ie based on user behavior ie entertainment choices, food otdering - the app could provide recommendations for vacation experiences and suggest times to purchase vacations and flights based on preferences
Execution - this will mainly be a huge challenge so I will reserve it for my downside analysis.
Competition - if we can execute, this app could be one of the most innovative apps in the world. Prob no other company could pull this off and so this could have a large competitive advantage over other players. WIll need to watch out for govt anti competition laws and could get into trouble with govt regulations.
- Differentiation would be the one stop shop for all online services
- SIngle vendor with a consistent user experience for all services
- SIngle point of customer service

Downside:

Revenues could suffer due to lack of focus in the business. The amount of people and logistics to make all these mini businesses successful would be large. In reality picking a few related, high potential businesses to target in an app would most likely generate more revenue than an app with many businesses like this
User experience will be difficult to get right with so many businesses combined into a single app. The app would feel clunky - it would be very easy to develop different parts fo teh app in isolation and cause the UX to be disjointed
Execution - would be a huge challenge. Eng wise this would require a large eng team. Even if there was a shared platform with a lot of shared infra and components, the complexity of designing something like this is large. Coordination between the diff eng teams would be very challenging as well. Creating a unified business strategy that allows the company to appear unified would also be a very difficult challenge. Finally business logistics would be very complicates as the business appear pretty diverse, ie gaming is not very related to hotel booking, cab sharing. All of these mini businesses would almost operate on their own and are diverse enough that logistically operations may not be able to be shared between mini-businesses

Conclusion

I would recommend against creating a mega app like this. Instead I would focus on some high value businesses that were complementary
- Travel and leisure app - news and media on vacation destinations, experiences with additional complementary businesses like vacation reservations, food reservations and recommendations, service bookings, ride sharing integration, e2e transportation reservations, user bulletin boards to discuss vacation ideas and planning
- This would focus the business more on some high value use cases which should have higher revenue potential than a jack of all trades
- User experience would be much better since the app wouldn’t be so complicated and still benefit from s single point of CS for services that are complimentary
- Execution would be less challenging from eng and logistics standpoint

SuperCalling · Answer 4 · 2024-08-14T17:19:21+0000

clarifying questions

1. am i a PM in a large company or a startup who wants to build - Microsoft

2. are these succesful biz existing offline or will they launch online only

3. Geography- india

Scene

Company :

Mission - increase productivity through tech

- strategically fits into the mission as all of these services online will help in improving efficiency by cutting cutting middle men present offline

competition / market

- google and meta have not build any super app

- tata has built a super app and has not been successful . WeChat has built in China and has been very successful

Pros

- common customer base across use cases

- one time customer acquisition instead of different acquisiiton needed in case of separate apps

- cross sell and up-sell possible.

- loyalty construct across use cases possible

Cons

- Positioning issue: different use cases like entertainment vs food ordering.

- app navigation issues : when a customer comes for a specific use case like food ordering , how to understand his intent and direct him to the right flow for completing his food order without any friction

- repeat and word of mouth: how to prevent poor performance of one use from affecting customer trust and loyalty for trying out another use case

- Design related challenges - how to give users the right User experience throughout the app across use cases

Conclusion

The downsides are much greater than the upsides and we should not invest in building a super app

productmanager123 · Answer 5 · 2021-06-08T08:11:55+0000

Assumptions:

iOS app, Android app, and web where it makes sense.

User exp: Single app on iOS or -> open -> way to perform each of the above functions.

On Webapp → Visit the main url -> way to perform each function

Clarification question: Is this for Google? Yes.

Lets simplify the analysis and focus on an iOS app. The analysis will be mostly applicable to android and webapp.

Current user experience:

User has a set of apps on phone. Based on intent, user decides to open a app and do the activity. If app doesnt exist, user searches on the web to find the right app, or on app store for the app, installs and does the activity.

Current google capabilities w.r.t impacting user experience

1/ No control on iOS

2/ Some control on Android. Can ensure certain apps are default.

3/ Less control on web. Can ensure that Chrome, Mozilla, Safari default to Google websites for certain activities

Current google capabilities in terms of actually providing a service

1/ Entertainment - youtube

2/ Grocery delivery - Google express?

Google doesnt provide any other actual service listed in the question. Instead, Google provides “information services” with a set of apps

1/ Search

2/ Maps

Productivity: GSuite apps

To provide any of the above services, Google will first need to build or acquire the service. For e.g, enable purchase of movie tickets using a google app. Assuming that Google acquires/builds such services, what are the pros and cons?

There are multiple stakeholders in answering this question: User, Google, Competitors, platform owner such as iOS/Android.

Super app:

Pros for User exp

1/ Discovery: Service discovery can be simplified. Recommend user on what to do across services. At the minimum, we can ask user to configure the discovery of services on the super app, the same way they would on a smartphone home screen. User also doesnt need to install the individual services. They will be in the super app anyway.

MEDIUM impact.

2/ Login mgmt: Single login across services. But not a big deal since if its all google services, then google can enable google login once across separate apps anyway. LOW impact.

Cons for user experience

1/ Needs one more click. Instead of going to smartphone home screen and clicking an app, they now need to open the super app, and then click the service to access the service. This can be tiresome for commonly used services - Youtube, Maps etc. HIGH impact.

2/ Experience can get cluttered. Currently, user can switch across apps in iOS by a simple swipe from bottom. With super app, if they have to switch across services, they will have to click atleast one more icon to get the “home screen” of the super app, and then select the service they want. Its very difficult to combine the expereince across services in the same screen. So this swthicng across services will be needed. High customer friction. HIGH impact.

3/ Size of super app can be become big: With some many services baked in, install size of super app will become large - friction during app install. Also with all these services loaded in the app, the app will become bloated - slow response. Or will need higher end smartphones to work very fast. HIGH impact.

Pros for Google:

1/ Enable service discovery. Can drive adoption by recommending what to do across services. THis would not be possible on iOS natively. Medium impact.

2/ Android OS can get disrupted with someone else builds the super app. For e.g, WeChat disintermediated android in China. Everyone goes to WeChat super app. Not building the super app, can leave scope for disintermediation. But this is not easy to do. Low- Medium impact.

Cons for Google:

1/ Building and managing a super app will be quite cumbersome: Ensuring that the app is not blaoted and runs fast on average hardware, will be very difficult, prompting teams to cut down service specific features and release light weight versions. This can impact user experience.

Overall, will not recommend, since the user experience friction is quite HIGH, and possibility for another super app to evolve is low.

Santhosh Kumar · Answer 6 · 2021-09-19T19:19:00+0000

Upsides of a super app

One stop solution: Users can address all their needs in a single app without the need to download multiple apps

Unified user experience across various use cases such e-commerce, hotel booking, etc: Users are accustomed to the user experience, becuase super app maintians the consistent user experience across different use cases

One time payment set up: Customers can set up a payment only once, and customers can track all their spending habits in one place holistically and easily

One time address set up: Customers can set up an address once, and forget it.

One username and password: Customers do not have to create multiple username and passwords for different use cases.

Better personalization: We can offer the customers the best personalized experience across the board because of the bredth of data that we collect from e-commerce, hotel booking, ride booking, gaming, holiday planning, etc.

Downside of a super app:

Lack of product differentitation: It is easier said than done that single super app can deliver product differentiation across all the use cases. For example: As for Hotel booking, specialty company in hotel booking tend to be feature rich in terms of more selection, more deals, better discovery experience.

It is might be difficult to build create that enriched experience for all use cases better than the each corresponding specialty companies such as expedia for hotel booking, kayak for aiport booking, etc.

Engagement across the board: Customers tend to have brand loyalty towards certain brands. For instance, customers might be prime member with Amazon that they prefer Amazon for e-commerce. This brand loyalty and famility with the Amazon product will make it difficult for the customer to move to super app to do online shopping. Similarly, customers would have purchased membership and would have been used to UX of specialty companies in terms of other use cases as well.

Anti-trust scrunity and data privacy issues: Given the wealth of the data that the super app generates about the customer, it would invite scrunity from the government and international watchdogs.

Since the company serves all the use cases, it would attract anti-trust scrunity from the various governmental agencies.

Outage and data hack: Customers will be negatively affected and their digital life will come to a standstill when there is a outage. It could be crippling for the customers.

When there is a data hack, it will expose customer's entire digital life to the world.

Performance issues: Due to the breadth of the use cases that is served by the app, it might cause the app to be little clunky and cause performance issues.

Discoverablility issues: Given the myriad of different offerings within the same app, customers might have trouble in finding the service that they want.

d_m · Answer 7 · 2022-05-19T15:25:40+0000

D

d_m

Gold PM

May 19, 2022

I have written this keeping any tech giant (Google/Amazon/FB/WeChat etc.) into account and not only Google.

Upsides	Downsides
Revenue from advertising through cross-selling and date	User experience has to be done with lot of precision (too many features might be cluttered)
Testing & introducing new products are easy with the scale of customers on the app. Even removing some apps which didn’t work (example: Google killed allo, hangouts etc.)	2. If there’s one bad experience, user would have bad perception on all other related products (Example: FB data privacy issues creeped on Whatsapp as well and users started using telegram)
Companies can play on unit economics, create macro growth loops, and can afford to create a better experience for customers (Example: Amazon offers no delivery charge on prime subscription because now the user has higher chances to use not just amazon.com but also prime)	3. Tech investments will be huge. Cost of maintaining is huge. Any downtime experienced will impact a huge scale of users.
Users would have great experiences and one stop place for all their needs (hotel + food + travel etc.) Would be much easier for them	4. Any data breach will impact a huge scale of users
Companies can create new habits in customers easily	5. Being a market leader creates a monopoly and companies can control prices

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