To me, your question seems to boil down to the economics of vertical integration.
Two thoughts:
First, GPT is all marginal cost, no fixed cost. So the marginal economics of 1 super app vs 10 specialized mini apps is roughly the same.
Second, imagine the same argument applied to a utility like electricity. "Why would any company pay for lightbulbs from one company, HVAC from a second company, and appliances from a third company?"
Early on, electricity was complicated and you might actually purchase all of these from the Edison Illuminating Company. But there are returns to specialization, and today the winning formula is different companies that specialize in each. The company best at manufacturing lightbulbs is not necessarily the company that is best at manufacturing washing machines.
Similarly, you could ask: "Why would any company pay for a laptop from one company, an operating system from a second company, and office apps from a third company?"
In some cases it may make sense to vertically integrate (e.g., Apple is happy to sell you a combined laptop + OS + Pages/Numbers), but in many cases the specialized players still do fine (e.g., you might buy a Dell laptop, a Microsoft OS, and Notion/Sheets).
So I think it's very much an open question as to whether the winning approach will be a Swiss army knife (single product) or a toolkit (multiple products).
Two thoughts:
First, GPT is all marginal cost, no fixed cost. So the marginal economics of 1 super app vs 10 specialized mini apps is roughly the same.
Second, imagine the same argument applied to a utility like electricity. "Why would any company pay for lightbulbs from one company, HVAC from a second company, and appliances from a third company?"
Early on, electricity was complicated and you might actually purchase all of these from the Edison Illuminating Company. But there are returns to specialization, and today the winning formula is different companies that specialize in each. The company best at manufacturing lightbulbs is not necessarily the company that is best at manufacturing washing machines.
Similarly, you could ask: "Why would any company pay for a laptop from one company, an operating system from a second company, and office apps from a third company?"
In some cases it may make sense to vertically integrate (e.g., Apple is happy to sell you a combined laptop + OS + Pages/Numbers), but in many cases the specialized players still do fine (e.g., you might buy a Dell laptop, a Microsoft OS, and Notion/Sheets).
So I think it's very much an open question as to whether the winning approach will be a Swiss army knife (single product) or a toolkit (multiple products).