Local Super Apps: The 15-Minute City Catalyzes a New Paradigm for the Platform Economy

Introduction

In the wave of the global digital economy, super apps have become the most typical form of the platform economy. From WeChat to Uber, these apps integrate diverse services such as social networking, payments, mobility, and delivery into a single interface, building strong market barriers through network effects. However, when these super apps are driven primarily by profit maximization, the tension between them and urban sustainable development goals is becoming increasingly prominent. In May 2024, an academic paper published in *Frontiers in Sustainable Cities* proposed a disruptive concept—public-sector-led "Local Super Apps" that deeply integrate the 15-minute City concept with Mobility-as-a-Feature (MaaF), offering a brand-new path for urban governance and the platform economy in the digital age. The study also used a user survey with 1,019 respondents to preliminarily explore public preferences for integrated services. This concept is not only relevant to smart city design, but will also reshape the business models, competitive logic, and data governance paradigms of the platform economy.

The Platform-Driven Expansion of Super Apps

Super apps are nothing new. In Asia, social platforms such as WeChat, KakaoTalk, and LINE have long evolved into digital life gateways integrating communication, payments, shopping, and mobility. In the mobility sector, the expansion paths of Uber, Bolt, Grab, Didi, and other companies also exhibit distinct "platformization" characteristics. These companies originally started with ride-hailing services and have since expanded into food delivery, freight logistics, financial services, and even travel booking. Hensher and Hietanen call this trend "Mobility-as-a-Feature" (MaaF), which transcends a single transport mode to integrate a broader range of life services into mobility platforms.

From a business logic perspective, this expansion is inevitable. The core assets of platform companies are user traffic and transaction data. By expanding service scenarios, they can increase user stickiness, lower customer acquisition costs, and maximize data value through cross-selling. However, this super app model dominated by private capital also raises many concerns. The paper's authors point out that existing platforms' service design tends to target young urban residents, overlooking the needs of the elderly, people with disabilities, and residents of remote areas. More critically, profit-driven platforms may induce unnecessary transportation demand, exacerbating congestion and carbon emissions, and running counter to the low-carbon, proximity-based principles advocated by the 15-minute City.

The Integration of the 15-Minute City and MaaSThe 15-minute city concept, proposed by Carlos Moreno in 2016, emphasizes that urban residents should be able to access daily services such as shopping, healthcare, education, and leisure within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. After the COVID-19 pandemic, this idea gained widespread attention and became an important framework for resilient cities and sustainable urban planning. At the same time, Mobility as a Service (MaaS) attempts to provide a seamless travel experience by integrating multiple modes of transportation, including public transit, bike-sharing, and ride-hailing. However, the actual results of MaaS have fallen short of expectations; the bankruptcy of the benchmark company MaaS Global shows that relying solely on market mechanisms and user payments cannot sustain a viable business model.

The core innovation of the paper is to combine MaaF with the 15-minute city concept to build a "local super app" model. This model envisions that within a 15-minute walking or cycling radius, residents can complete all daily needs through one app: booking community clinic appointments, buying groceries from supermarkets, ordering food delivery, reserving cinema tickets, and planning and paying for shared bike or bus trips. In other words, the digital platform is no longer just a collection of virtual services, but is tightly coupled with physical urban space, forming an integrated online-offline community living circle.

Unlike global super apps that pursue scale expansion, local super apps emphasize "embeddedness" and "publicness." The paper argues that such apps should be developed and regulated under the leadership of local governments or public institutions to ensure that their service goals align with urban transportation policies and sustainable development goals. This bottom-up model can better respond to the specific needs of local communities, and through public subsidies and incentive mechanisms, it can cover vulnerable groups and remote areas, narrowing the digital divide.

From the perspective of the digital economy, the emergence of local super apps may change the fundamental logic of the platform economy. Traditional platforms achieve winner-take-all outcomes through cross-regional network effects, whereas local apps build advantages through geographical proximity and community trust. For example, small shops within a community can gain digital visibility equivalent to that of large chain enterprises through the platform, thereby activating the local economy. At the same time, the travel and consumption data accumulated by the platform will become a public urban resource rather than a private corporate asset.

In terms of business models, local super apps must address the issue of sustainable operations. The paper does not provide a mature solution, but it points out that a balance between revenue and expenditure can be achieved through government subsidies, service fees, and the sharing economy. More importantly, their success should not be measured solely by commercial returns, but should use environmental benefits, social inclusiveness, and service quality as core indicators. This provides a new research topic for platform economics: how to design incentive mechanisms under public value constraints.One potential path is a hybrid model of "public platform + private services." The platform infrastructure is owned by the public sector, providing open API interfaces that allow third-party service providers to connect; specific services such as goods delivery and medical consultations can then be provided by private enterprises. This model can leverage the public sector's coordinating role while retaining the market's innovative vitality. At the same time, using artificial intelligence algorithms for resource scheduling and demand forecasting can significantly improve operational efficiency and provide technical support for achieving sustainability goals.

Market Competition and Ecosystem Impact

The promotion of local super apps will have a profound impact on the existing market landscape of mobility and life-service platforms. First, global platforms such as Uber and Bolt may face competitive pressure from public platforms. Because public platforms enjoy policy support and public trust, their service costs may be lower, especially in "non-profit" areas such as public transit connections and bike-sharing. Second, local small and medium-sized enterprises will become the main beneficiaries, as the platform lowers the digital barrier to reaching users and provides collective bargaining power to compete with large platforms.

However, challenges also exist. Platforms led by the public sector may be constrained by bureaucratic systems and slower in innovation; data security and privacy protection also require more careful institutional design. In addition, without sufficient user scale, network effects are difficult to form, and the platform may fall into a "ghost town" predicament. Therefore, how to strike a balance between public governance and market efficiency will be the key to future practice.

Data and Regulation: The New Frontier of Digital Governance

The concept of local super apps coincides with a turning point in the strengthening of global digital regulation. The EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) aim to curb the market power of large online platforms and promote data interoperability and fair competition. The paper specifically notes that local super apps, being controlled by the public sector, naturally align with the spirit of these regulations and help achieve data sovereignty. They greatly increase the transparency of data ownership and usage rights, preventing private platforms from exploiting data advantages to engage in monopolistic behavior.

More importantly, this model may become a testing ground for cross-border data flow regulation. In the EU, cross-border data transfers are strictly restricted. Local super apps localize data storage and processing, which can reduce compliance risks. At the same time, they provide an example for building city-level data spaces, enabling data on transportation, consumption, healthcare, and other areas to be safely used for public decision-making under privacy protection.

Global Trends Outlook: The Platformization Path of Smart Cities

Local super apps are not an isolated academic concept. Several cities around the world have already begun experimenting with similar practices. For example, Helsinki's Whim app was not successful, but its lessons are worth learning. The paper's authors believe that in the long run, this model may drive the rise of "platform cities," making digital infrastructure part of urban public goods. In this process, the integration of AI commercialization and the platform economy will become closer, but the direction will shift from "extracting user attention" to "improving quality of life."For Chinese companies, Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance and others have accumulated mature experience in the super app domain. Combining this experience with topics such as the 15-minute city and smart cities may open up new space for cooperation in the global digital transformation of cities. At the same time, local governments can also draw on this model to explore localized digital public service platforms, so as to address challenges such as an aging population and insufficient community services.

DigitalEcoNews Insight

The concept of a local super app is, in essence, a reflection on the "tragedy of the commons" in the platform economy. When a handful of tech giants control digital infrastructure, their profit-driven logic may erode social equity and sustainability. In contrast, a public-sector-led local platform, by placing data and algorithms under public scrutiny, redefines the boundaries between profit and value. This idea is not opposed to the platform economy; rather, it promotes the maturation of platform governance systems. For enterprises, this means that future competition will no longer be limited to scale and speed, but will depend on the ability to create shared benefits with cities and communities. For city administrators, it provides a practical path for aligning digital strategies with climate goals. We should pay close attention to this trend, as it may become one of the most profound institutional innovations in the digital economy over the next decade.

(Information source: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-cities/articles/10.3389/frsc.2024.1404105/full）