Mobile apps will disappear soon
In another few more years I expect that most mobile apps will disappear and with it, the multi-billions that VC's across the world had poured into this whole start-up sector. All burned to ashes with nothing left but lines of code nobody really wants.
The logic came to me 4 years ago when I was considering investing in a start-up that created a mobile app to create apps for users without having to code (the concept is similar to free website creation services like Wix.com, except what you are creating is a native mobile app). Simply enter some basic information and the app will generate an app for you on their cloud server. You can then download and install this app on your phone and also ask your friends or family to do the same through sharing a link or QR code. The idea was to make it easy for individuals or small businesses to create their own little personal app for social or marketing purposes.
The vision was that one day every legal entity (human being and companies) would have their own mobile apps, dotted like physical properties all over a map. Unfortunately it didn't happen, and I doubt it ever will. Why? Simple.
All of us can only put up with at most 50-100 apps in our phones.
If you don't believe me count the number of apps you have in your phone. Chances are if you take away the pre-installed apps from the handset manufacturer that you can't get rid of, you have at least 20 less. The ones you use frequently probably numbers less than 30. Too many apps slows your phone down, with most of them running something or the other in the background these days. Would you really install a few hundred 'friend apps' (I'm guessing that's how many Facebook friends each of us has on average?) or the apps of all your favourite restaurants or grocers or fashion boutiques?
Apps must fulfill a frequent, functional purpose instead of just provide information.
When smartphones first appear all major corporations rushed to make an app. Then they realised it was a real headache maintaining it. The truth is, unless you are a major news publisher or retailer moving your delivery channels to mobile, most companies these days have realised all they need is a mobile-friendly website. If information is all they want, people will still google it on a browser.
Even successful native app based businesses like social networking, m-commerce or games will consolidate.
Any industry consolidates as it matures. This is more so in the world of native apps where economies of scale, large user bases, frequent traffic etc etc... are required for monetization. No matter how great your wonderful new app idea may be, it is taking more and more marketing dollars to be burned before a critical mass can be reached to effectively monetize, much less break-even.
So let's face it. native apps will only be necessary for frequent, useful functions that perform well only when ran from an app installed in our phones. All the rest will just become mobile friendly websites or sub-domains of other key apps. For the latter simply look at what Wechat has done in China. Almost every business has a Wechat "Public Account" that is really just a HTML page accessed via the inbuilt Wechat browser in its app. These Public Accounts are identical in concept to the Company Pages on Facebook or LinkedIn, except they are integrated into the whole Wechat native app's ecosystem which includes e-payment. Wechat is now reportedly experimenting with converting these Public Accounts from HTML pages into "child native apps" within the larger Wechat app itself with a select group of beta developers. (For those who are IT inclined think child themes in Wordpress). The West has much to learn from China sometimes in terms of m-commerce.
In any case, apps are called "applications" in the first place cos that's what Apple called locally installed software in their computers in order to differentiate them from Windows. Would you install more than a 100 different software on your laptop or PC? Is it necessary despite all that smartphones can do for us on the go today?
VC Fellow | Web3 FinTech Founder | Techstars Alumnus
6 年Kevin Blake-Thomas, Darwin Feveck, interesting read. Let's discuss. Thanks for sharing Lance.
CEO, audax | Pushing frontiers, Solving for happiness.
7 年interesting thought - although your article title has a significant element of "Clickbait". Nowhere in your article does it say that apps will go away / "disappear". What you are saying is the the mode through which apps are delivered may change. While everyone is talking about the WeChat model in China, it may also be pertinent to note that that development took place in a very different marketplace / circumstance. Their continued difficulty expanding outside of China - while some inroads have been made - is testament that the model may not be universally acceptable. Still, good to posit, though not necessarily accurate from an article title perspective.
Contact Officer – Participant and Provider Channels at NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission
8 年I'm not in programming, but I am fascinated about where the world is headed, and this makes a lot of sense to me. I have many unused apps on my phone, downloaded because they seemed like a good idea a the time! Thank you, Lance - you have encouraged me to 'clean out my closet'! And the comment Jay Chandran K makes about DUV - brilliant idea! Although would we need to download an app to measure it? ;)
President at Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc.
8 年I totally agree. It's very difficult to keep track of all the apps people want you to load - and in truth only a few really get used; the ones I use are in fact the ones that can't run from a browser. These are very good points that Lance makes.
Communications Manager
8 年If I remember correctly, Steve Jobs was onto this year's ago - Apple developed mobile apps as a stop gap before they rolled out native apps. However, the money started flowing in via apps...what do you do?