Catching Up With Hybrid Totalitarianism: The national messenger app is yet another attempt to combine the Western and Chinese models in Russia

The success of super apps: the Asian model

However, from a commercial point of view, a super app is one of the most difficult projects to implement in the tech world. Examples of both successful and failed attempts to develop and launch such apps demonstrate that, beyond technological solutions, success requires time, the right institutional environment, and specific user habits.

WeChat emerged in 2011 as a product of Tencent, one of the leading companies in the Chinese tech sector. This was a period of explosive smartphone adoption, between 2011 and 2016, the proportion of global smartphone users grew from 10% to 36% of the population, while in the US, smartphone penetration jumped from 42% to 81%. At the same time, there was a boom in text and voice messaging apps. WhatsApp, created in the US by an engineer from Ukraine, appeared in 2009; South Korea’s KakaoTalk and Israel’s Viber launched in 2010; Japan’s LINE and Facebook Messenger in 2011; Vietnam’s Zalo in 2012; and Russia’s Telegram in 2013. Thus, the Russian market developed broadly in line with global trends, albeit with some delay.

Over time, these applications were either absorbed into larger platforms or became platforms themselves. The creators of WeChat followed the latter path. In 2013, the app introduced public accounts and integrated payments (initially for in-game purchases via WeChat Pay). In 2017, it launched its mini-program system: embedded third-party products that ran within WeChat without the need for separate installation. Because super apps accumulate data on user preferences and behaviour (social connections, purchase history, location, etc.), they can personalise services and recommendations in ways that standalone apps cannot. The integration of mini-programs allows users to access new services recommended by friends without having to register separately.

By combining messaging, a digital wallet, a social network, an e-commerce platform, and access to public services – from tax payments to booking medical appointments – into a single point of entry, WeChat ultimately became a true super app.

Many companies have attempted, and some have succeeded, in replicating this model in other markets, for example, Singapore-based Grab and Indonesia’s Gojek. Both began as consumer services (food delivery, ride-hailing), later acquiring third-party products. Today, each of them unites dozens of services and operates across the Asia-Pacific region. A similar model, inspired by their success, has also taken root in parts of the Middle East and Africa, according to the authors of the Economist Impact report 'From online bazaar to one-stop shop. The Rise of Super Apps in the Middle East and Africa'.

Failure in the West

However, in Western markets, the super app model has not taken hold due to early-formed user habits and platform policies. From the outset, the rules of Apple’s and Google’s app stores discouraged products that combined too many functions. This even became the subject of an antitrust lawsuit in the United States: the Justice Department's 2024 lawsuit against Apple alleges that the company 'stifled the development of super apps' to protect its own ecosystem. This is a paradoxical turn, as one might expect antitrust regulators to prevent the rise of super apps, given their concentration of data and market power. Nevertheless, the case highlights an important trend: Western ecosystems developed from different starting points and relied on user loyalty to specialised services.

As a result, Western consumers have become accustomed to using a range of dedicated apps. Integrated services like those offered by Facebook, or Elon Musk’s 'everything app' concept, have not been embraced by Western markets. Another important factor is that smartphones in the West were distributed as relatively expensive devices, often requiring users to install paid apps. In Asia and Africa, by contrast, the mass adoption of smartphones was made possible by simple, low-cost devices typically used with just one or two apps, which facilitated the uptake of super apps, as noted by the authors of the Economist Impact report.

The attempt to create a universal, multifunctional platform based on Pavel Durov’s Telegram also ended in failure. A key step in building a product for a global audience with a focus on privacy was to be the development of the TON (Telegram Open Network) blockchain platform and the Gram cryptocurrency, which were intended to embed decentralised payment, trading, and service functions directly into Telegram. However, in 2020, the project was halted by a decision by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which classified Gram tokens as unregistered securities.

Following this, Telegram shifted its focus to developing its own advertising platform, launching bots, integrating in-app payments, and rolling out Telegram Business, bringing it closer to the super app format. However, unlike WeChat, Telegram opted not for a vertically integrated model, but for a decentralised and technologically open model that allows third-party developers to integrate into the ecosystem.

On the road to digital totalitarianism

In a market environment, a super app serves as a tool for capturing consumer needs and user aspirations. In an authoritarian context, however, it becomes a 'dual-use product'. User convenience and efficient administration are transformed into instruments of expanded control. China’s WeChat censors all content, including messages in private chats, and has the ability to instantly block information for more than a billion users. Anonymity in the system is non-existent: registration is only possible with a passport or another official ID. At the request of security services, the company can block an account, for example, for participating in protests, which automatically results in the loss of access to payments, banking services, correspondence, deliveries, and a host of other functions.

Regaining access to a blocked account is extremely difficult: it requires lengthy procedures involving both the platform and state authorities. As digital rights lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan notes, it is precisely in such cases that one can see how a technological infrastructure created for comfort and efficiency can be transformed into the foundation of digital authoritarianism, or even a new form of techno-totalitarianism.

However, as shown above, the implementation of a super app is no simple process. Summarising the 15-year development of WeChat, several conditions for the success of such a product can be identified. First, the service emerged at the peak of rapid smartphone proliferation, benefiting from organic growth. Second, it evolved in fierce competition with the Alipay ecosystem, which had grown from a marketplace and also developed into a super app. Third, its position was strengthened by state policy that protected the domestic market from foreign competitors, including WhatsApp and Facebook. Finally, China quickly embraced a culture of using universal, integrated services, in particular, the near-total adoption of digital wallets like Alipay and WeChat Pay.

Catching up with regulation

The Russian model of digital ecosystem evolution has gone through two, or rather three, distinct phases: an initial 'natural' growth spurt, a phase of intense commercial innovation in the latter half of the 2010s, and subsequently, a 'catching-up' phase of state intervention.

In the 2000s, the Russian internet (Runet) developed in an environment with extremely low levels of regulation. One consequence of this was the rapid success of local solutions, foremost among them Yandex, which became one of the first national search engines in the world. Soon after came local social networks, such as Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, as well as marketplaces like Ozon and Avito. Russian IT projects largely followed global trends, and Western products, including messaging apps, were readily adopted in the Russian context. On this foundation, during the latter half of the 2010s, Runet became a space of digitalised everyday life and numerous commercial innovations.

By the time political control became a key priority for the Russian authorities in the 2010s, the digital environment had already developed its own momentum with entrenched user habits, the presence of Western platforms, and local competition among ecosystems. The very structure of this environment, shaped by market forces, set limits on state control and posed an obstacle to achieving the ideal of digital authoritarianism.

After the protests of 2011–2012, the authorities took numerous steps towards the sovereignty of the Russian internet, recognising its ‘subversive’ potential. In 2012, a law was passed establishing a 'unified register' of banned internet resources, administered by Roskomnadzor. In 2014, following the passage of a data localisation law, Putin called the internet a ‘special CIA project.’ In 2016, the first foreign platform, LinkedIn, was blocked in Russia for failing to comply with this law. At the same time, the ‘Yarovaya package’ was adopted, requiring companies to store user data long-term and to provide the FSB with tools for message decryption. In 2018, citing this law, the FSB obtained a court order to block Telegram. This effort proved ineffective and was eventually reversed two years later.

This was followed by legislation targeting news aggregators, VPN services, the pre-installation of Russian apps on smartphones, and the import substitution of software. By the late 2010s, anonymity within the Russian segment of the internet had been significantly undermined through legislative and administrative regulation: a passport is required to purchase a SIM card in Russia, and messaging apps must be linked to the SIM. At the end of 2019, the law on the ‘sovereign Runet’ came into force, which included the ability to reroute internet traffic through state-controlled nodes and to introduce a national domain name system (DNS). The technical controls introduced alongside this law allowed Roskomnadzor to more effectively block traffic within the country. In 2022, following the start of the war in Ukraine, these tools were used to block Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

It is telling that, at this stage, the authorities made significant efforts to implement technical means of controlling Runet but showed little interest in the 'user-facing' side. At worst, they aimed to seize control of existing ecosystems, as occurred first with VKontakte, and later with Yandex. But overall, the market for internet apps and platforms continued to operate according to market principles. The Russian segment of the global internet has not become a closed space. The legislative framework did tighten control over user behaviour on social media and denied access to many foreign resources, but the goals set out in the laws were only partially realised, and prohibitive measures were only partially effective. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Telegram remain accessible parts of a competitive digital environment in Russia.

Authoritarian-market hybrid

Towards the end of the 2010s and the beginning of the 2020s, as the state pushed Western players out of the market, the largest Runet companies received a bonus in the form of growing user bases and began to build multifunctional platforms that were intended to occupy the super-app niche. Service ecosystems encompassing marketplaces, delivery, finance, and media, were consolidated under the umbrellas of Yandex, Sber, and VK. Yandex even attempted to acquire Tinkoff Bank (which ultimately went to Interros) to strengthen its fintech component. In this way, the private sector was assembling the puzzle pieces for a super app, but the Russian market remained competitive, and instead of a single platform, several ecosystems emerged. Attempts to build domestic messaging apps, such as TamTam (VK), Dialogues (Sber), and others, were made but ultimately failed.

In any market (whether tightly regulated or relatively open), 'taming' the user is only possible through a certain trade-off: the user must be willing to give up some privacy or control over personal data in exchange for convenience, speed, and integration of digital services. In practice, comfort and functionality often outweigh the risks associated with the potential use of that data by the state or corporations for surveillance or influence. But that comfort and functionality must be genuine — not merely simulated.

The early 2010s, an era of mass smartphone adoption, could have been a favourable time to introduce a universal app, but the strong presence of Western products on the market made this impossible. Today, even a super app that is forcibly pre-installed will have to contend with an entrenched structure of user preferences.

The true key to a super app’s success lies in the coupling of a social platform with a fintech solution. This is the route WeChat followed, adapting itself to the needs of an autocracy, and the path Pavel Durov also intended to pursue under a more anarchistic, anti-state banner. In China, mobile wallets are the primary payment instrument: according to a GlobalData survey, 84% of the internet audience relied on them in 2023. In Russia, according to expert estimates, digital wallets are currently used by only around 30% of users, with the market divided among several competing systems (Qiwi Wallet, SberPay, Yandex Money, WebMoney, and others). In other words, both the market for social platforms and the market for fintech solutions remain competitive. Any move towards monopolisation is still a long way off.

Paradoxically, despite waves of bans and regulatory pressure, Russia still maintains a competitive digital landscape, and user habits have been shaped by Western platforms and an era of digital freedom. This is neither a Chinese nor a broadly 'Asian' model, but rather a fragmented and 'hacked' version of the Western digital path.

At present, Russian authorities are essentially attempting to substitute the infrastructure of services whose Western counterparts Russian users had become accustomed to (a striking example being Rutube or 'RuWiki'). However, such 'clones' are being created without going through the stages of natural growth in a competitive environment – a process experienced by both purely market-driven products in the Western model and authoritarian-market hybrids in the Chinese model. The predictable failures of such ‘regressive import substitution’ will be compensated for by restricting competition, expanding bans, and introducing coercive measures.

A national super app can only become a true instrument of control if it proves indispensable at the points of daily user interaction with the state and with essential commercial services, from deliveries to bill payments. This means it can only become mandatory through practice, that is, through the systematic displacement of all alternatives. To achieve this, it would have to suppress or absorb the ecosystems of Yandex and Sber, a scenario which currently appears unrealistic. The market substrate of Runet remains competitive and highly user-driven, even though the owners of Russia’s major internet companies are now all state-appointed. Building digital authoritarianism is no simple task, especially under conditions where the digital environment was shaped over two decades within an entirely different model and has often been a hub of innovation and breakthroughs.

Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the Russian authorities will continue to pursue this direction.