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WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

nautil.us

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Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#111

Post by ghaff »

ohnope wrote: post #68
drubbo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author also waited 25 minutes for a coffe; it takes 2 with a moka, half with a coffee machine.

2 minutes with a moka? I seriously need to step up my game. 1 minute: hang grind fresh beans 1 minute: take out moka pot, fill with water, put coffee in, put on stove 3-6 minutes depending on ambient temp: moka boils 1 minute: pour cup, wash out moka pot Moka is such a pain. I drip now for time efficiency.

I have way too many coffee makers of various types at home. I always seem to end up circling back to electric drip. Fewest actions and least manual intervention of any approach first thing in the morning. (I don't really like Keurig and it's pretty wasteful--and I generally want more than one cup anyway.)

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#112

Post by lotsofpulp »

adinobro wrote: post #84
adamsea wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is different because in China I doubt there would have been any investigative reporting about the government and AT&T. And while AT&T doesn’t seem to have done this, other companies such as Apple have enacted privacy measures which directly contravene the stated wishes of the government - but which are legal. In China, I believe the way it works is, whatever the government wants becomes legal. The US is far from p…

One of the biggest and more interesting difference is that the US government wants to keep these things secret and investigative reporting finds them. In China, they want this information public because they want people to know that they know and self regulate - Panopticon. The cynic in me looks at the US as a country controlled by companies while China is a country that controls companies. I don't know if it makes t…

The only optimal solution for the little guy is complete privacy, or complete transparency, where everyone has equal access to all information. Complete privacy is evidently not achievable, therefore the only option left is complete transparency.

Either way, the current reality of some lucky individuals having all the access to everyone’s information, whether it’s Chinese government or companies or US government or companies is the worst situation to be in if you have little power, i.e. 99.9999999% of people who aren’t billionaires/nation state level diplomats.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#113

Post by H1Supreme »

kolla wrote: post #70
bamboozled wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, do people even enjoying drinking nice / real coffee anymore when drinking from Starbucks or have it delivered and sipping it at your desk or in the elevator, or is this just some kind of habit like smoking? Why not just wash down a caffeine pill with warm glass of water for the kick and move when time pressed?

Not sure what coffee shops you have near you but the ones where I live have better coffee than most people have at home.

That's not a particularly hard problem to solve. Buy good roasted beans, a grinder, and basically any coffee pot. Grinding your own beans before brewing makes a big difference vs. brewing a pot of Folgers.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#114

Post by usaar333 »

markplindsay wrote: post #51
catherd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash still works exactly the way it always has, (almost) nobody is going to turn down your business because you don't pay by an app.

I was in China (Beijing and Wenzhou) in April. I had NO success finding a taxi in Beijing—the only way to get a ride was to use an app like Didi Chuxing. I was able to install and use it just fine. The problem was that it is impossible to link a non-PRC payment method to it. The same is true for WeChat Pay or Alipay—you've got to use a Chinese bank account or card as a source. I was not able to find a way around this…

For WeChat pay, you can always directly exchange RMB for USD (say with venmo). There's websites to facilitate this if you don't have a Chinese contact.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#115

Post by panglott »

kingkawn wrote: post #95
jcbrand wrote: post #19

> At 9:27, once I’ve brushed my teeth, answered a few messages, and wiped the sleep from my eyes, I order a coffee through WeChat. There’s a payments window on the app, and when you click on it you see various options, some proprietary to WeChat and some which are independent apps that run on WeChat’s platform. I open the Meituan delivery app and scroll through all the coffee options around me. I order an Americano.…

Cmon cmon, in nyc people have been calling the bodega to order anything and everything for decades, including single cups of tea.

Yep, Chengdu is a huge, dense city, with about 10 million people.

Now I'm feeling nostalgic, I was only there for a few weeks, but with the parks, teahouses, and food, it was my favorite city in China.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#116

Post by ndarwincorn »

SeanAppleby wrote: post #91
maimeowmeow wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If such a pill was ever created, I surmise that the coffee industry would collapse overnight.

You used to be able to buy a half kilo brick of caffeine on prime for like $30. That's enough caffeine to give you a heart attack 100 times over, it would last you forever. It didn't affect the coffee industry because drinking coffee is an enjoyable process, not a one dimensional addiction around caffeine

> it would last you forever

Can confirm. Bought two in 2013, still have ~450 grams in the first bag I opened. Well worth the ~$50 (including a jeweler's scale) for a lifetime supply of preworkout supplements.

The FDA banned bulk caffeine sales in 2015[1] or 2018[2] too. This is probably a good idea, most folks have no idea how much caffeine is in a cup of coffee, much less how to measure that dose in powdered form.

[1] https://www.fda.gov/food/dietary-supplement-products-ingredi... [2] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-take...

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#117

Post by usaar333 »

dewey wrote: post #39
_sveq wrote: post #2

I go to China often but it's been two years now. I don't look forward to the next visit for this very reason—I'll need this to pay for any and everything. I'm not going back.

I was there last month and it was almost impossible to get money on your WeChat account without a Chinese bank account. It was easy to fund my Malaysian WeChat account but the balance isn't transferable or usable in China. There's currently one remaining loop hole I know about which is to pay someone to send money via a red envelope / hóngbāo but it's getting increasingly harder. It's already asking you for a passpor…

Is this a loop hole or intentional? I'm guessing wechat doesn't care to optimize the visitor experience.

Has it ever been different? Afaik, it's as limited as it always was; they just added identity verification.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#118

Post by usaar333 »

markplindsay wrote: post #86
adinobro wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually find Alipay easier to use for payments and it is easier to set up. If you don't want to chat I would use it instead.

Can you set up Alipay with a non-Chinese bank account or card? It works great for Chinese people and foreign residents of the PRC who have a bank account. However, my experience as a tourist was that it was impossible to link my US credit card using the PRC version of the app downloaded while in China.

At least as if last Sep, no. I actually called customer service.

Wechat pay is an option though; you just need to find a Chinese national that will send your account money.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#119

Post by Tepix »

ubercow13 wrote: post #94
drubbo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper cup won't be recycled though, and electricity isn't pulled from thin air.

If you went to the coffee shop yourself, it would probably be on your own electric scooter anyway. And you'd take your coffee away in the same paper cup.

You could use a reusable cup.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#120

Post by Tepix »

mstaoru wrote: post #36
kylegordon wrote: post #20

'It knows my biometric information; it knows the very contours of my face.' The iPhone does, WeChat doesn't.

Nope, in this case the camera is run by Wechat and they have their own biometric database.

Can you use a password instead?
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