I guess by using this app, you basically give up all your info to chinese authorities. I would never used that
WeChat requires almost all permissions possible on Android :(
When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
51–60 of 60 posts
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#52It seems like the opportunity here for Firefox OS and Android in the future is to have an API layer that's even simpler and allow for apps that are lighter weight. As I read the article I thought, hey wouldn't it be nice if my apartment building let me reserve the tennis court or report issues with an app? But then I thought...it would take them 3 months to put together something that just barely works and then another 9 months to make something that works well and it'll probably still have a shitty user interface.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#53Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Please spellcheck "educated populous" before claiming another country doesn't have one.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
A) Trust is not an issue in these regards in China. B) when your chat app generates a QR code that the chat app of the friend or the payment tool from a shop uses it's quite clear what the QR code means. It's not that there are random QR Codes everywhere on the street and you have to trust them. If you want to add me, I don't tell you my nick name but just show you my QR code on my phone and you add through your app,…
Oh no. Here's how an attack might go. I'm a shop assistant and show you a QR code to scan to make a purchase. Unknown to you, I'm not actually showing you the real app, but a fake app with fake QR code that will redirect you to a malicious website, which in it's turn will load the proper URL after having executed an unpatched zero-day on your device. You are sad because your device has just been pwned. You are at the…
Yeah, but you don't show your QR Code, I show mine. Your trick can be to grab more money from me than you put on your price tag.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#56It 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.
Please let us know how the bet turns out.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#57Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#58I 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…
"became dominant in their countries the same way WeChat did: bundling" This is false. WeChat became big because it is a good app AND because it provided a seamless on-ramp for users of QQ (the previous dominant instant messenger, also owned by Tencent).
Giving away $81 million in cash probably didn't hurt either.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, the wallet thing is both amazing and terrifying. Apparently the only thing standing between me and sending all my worldly wealth to a wechat contact is a six-digit PIN. Two-factor whut? Given what I know of the Wild-West Chinese internet, this is deeply worrying.
> Seriously, the wallet thing is both amazing and terrifying. Apparently the only thing standing between me and sending all my worldly wealth to a wechat contact is a six-digit PIN. Indeed. My internet banking account (that my employer gives me) has the same PIN as internet password. Change the PIN at the ATM, and the internet banking password also changes. Change the internet PIN, and the ATM pin changes. Damn, they…
Without a transaction fee, where do they make money?
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
"became dominant in their countries the same way WeChat did: bundling" This is false. WeChat became big because it is a good app AND because it provided a seamless on-ramp for users of QQ (the previous dominant instant messenger, also owned by Tencent).
Giving away $81 million in cash probably didn't hurt either.
This was in February 2015. WeChat hit ~400MM MAU about a year before that. You've got the causality the wrong way around.