When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
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Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#2I think a great deal is being attributed to "leapfrogging" which should instead be attributed to idiosyncrasies in the Chinese market. Like that it's big, and that a great deal of software is bundled.
For starters, surely there are other places around the world with nation-dominating highly-integrated platform apps. I mean, they name LINE and KakaoTalk. Is their point that China is 3x bigger than Japan and 10x bigger than Korea? Those factors are certainly accurate with respect to their national PPP (3.7x and 9.9x), and explains the data they observe really well. But Japan didn't have a leapfrogging experience, as they claim. Korea is a bit more complicated, but nonetheless, not cut-and-dried.
Why WeChat in particular? The other apps compared—LINE and KakaoTalk—arguably became dominant in their countries the same way WeChat did: bundling. It just comes with your phone. By that logic, do we label the Apple App Store, bundled with every iPhone, a "service" that takes a 30% cut of many of the transactions that occur there? Again, the App Store absolutely fulfills all the roles described in the article, notwithstanding their particular points about UI.
A16Z just isn't getting rich off Apple, so they're not going around hyping up an arguably the platform to end all platforms. Apple made $4.8 billion in iTunes and software on 1 billion iOS devices total by Q1 2015. It's not WeChat's estimated "$7 ARPU", but honestly, I bet Apple's is actually higher.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#3I am in China right this instant and (like everyone) I have wechat on my phone. Perhaps the services mentioned don't have much use/appeal to expats, but I have never heard of any of the stuff mentioned in this article. Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile).
At first I couldn't even find any of the features mentioned. some of the stuff (taxi's, planes) are hidden in some submenu called "bank cards" which I originally thought was for unlocking emoji and stuff. Perhaps I need to run an update, but I can't even find a "sub app store" of 3rd party verified accounts.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#4I am in China right this instant and (like everyone) I have wechat on my phone. Perhaps the services mentioned don't have much use/appeal to expats, but I have never heard of any of the stuff mentioned in this article. Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile). At first I couldn't even find any of the features mentioned. some of the stuff (taxi's, planes) are hidden i…
Given how hard it was for me to do non cash commerce without a Chinese ID card, it's no surprise that you don't use those features. Do you use the app in English? Maybe the English version doesn't even have these features.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#5It sounds like a world where AOL won and we all accessed the internet through keywords and paid everything through AOL, or very similar to France's old Minitel, except for mobile.
Having everything in one app is interesting if only because it offers some powerful integration opportunities, but otherwise this sounds like a proto-Internet for a developing economy.
$5 says they evolve past this in the next 3-5 years and their app ecosystem looks a lot more like ours.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#6It sounds like a world where AOL won and we all accessed the internet through keywords and paid everything through AOL, or very similar to France's old Minitel, except for mobile. Having everything in one app is interesting if only because it offers some powerful integration opportunities, but otherwise this sounds like a proto-Internet for a developing economy. $5 says they evolve past this in the next 3-5 years and…
Or the mobile messaging ecosystem in US will look a lot more like wechat in 3-5 years. China can be ahead in some areas.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#7I am in China right this instant and (like everyone) I have wechat on my phone. Perhaps the services mentioned don't have much use/appeal to expats, but I have never heard of any of the stuff mentioned in this article. Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile). At first I couldn't even find any of the features mentioned. some of the stuff (taxi's, planes) are hidden i…
Given how hard it was for me to do non cash commerce without a Chinese ID card, it's no surprise that you don't use those features. Do you use the app in English? Maybe the English version doesn't even have these features.
yeah I have it set to English. I don't think there is an English version per se, just different consumer facing text. Commerce shouldn't be too hard. I have a bank account here and my card is Union Pay.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given how hard it was for me to do non cash commerce without a Chinese ID card, it's no surprise that you don't use those features. Do you use the app in English? Maybe the English version doesn't even have these features.
yeah I have it set to English. I don't think there is an English version per se, just different consumer facing text. Commerce shouldn't be too hard. I have a bank account here and my card is Union Pay.
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Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#9I think a great deal is being attributed to "leapfrogging" which should instead be attributed to idiosyncrasies in the Chinese market. Like that it's big, and that a great deal of software is bundled. For starters, surely there are other places around the world with nation-dominating highly-integrated platform apps. I mean, they name LINE and KakaoTalk. Is their point that China is 3x bigger than Japan and 10x bigger…
Which smartphone manufacturer is bundling WeChat in China?
I know that Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi doesn't, and these three together make up a good chunk of the market.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#10It sounds like a world where AOL won and we all accessed the internet through keywords and paid everything through AOL, or very similar to France's old Minitel, except for mobile. Having everything in one app is interesting if only because it offers some powerful integration opportunities, but otherwise this sounds like a proto-Internet for a developing economy. $5 says they evolve past this in the next 3-5 years and…
Or the mobile messaging ecosystem in US will look a lot more like wechat in 3-5 years. China can be ahead in some areas.
If china is ahead in this, then humanity might as well pack it in. China's sandbox model works well when you've got a few hundred million uneducated peasants, but an educated populous (Which china is having more success stopping than I care to admit) wants diversity; It wants options, differing opinions, choices that cater to them, not to what people want to offer them.