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WeChat’s world
31–40 of 109 posts
Re: WeChat’s world
#32Bit offtopic; For me it shows more, to western apps, how you build an app that always works... with wechat I can do sync and async voice calls, chat and photo sending with any connection, even if it is very slow or intermittend. No western app I have tried, including the actual phone app, does that as well as wechat. I can call, on 2g crappy China Mobile to colleagues in the EU where Skype and Whatsapp will not even…
One thing you need to be careful about is comparing a service in China with the service outside of China. For example Skype in China because of the monitoring put on it disconnects all the time where it would be fine outside of China. Services like WeChat have an inbuilt advantage in that their connectivity isn't as interfered with in the same way that western apps are.
Re: WeChat’s world
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
No because it also works outside China (I live in the mountains of Spain and do a lot of work while walking through said mountains; around a corner suddenly you lose internet and the next it's back; wechat copes with that fine even in a call, whatsapp not so much last I tried); if you compare; - go on 2g with 1 bar (really bad/intermitted 2g) - upload a photo to a friend on wechat & whatsapp => whatsapp is significan…
Ah you're talking about voice, which I rarely do (as I find voice messages especially annoying, but that's offtopic). I found Wechat to be a resource hog on my phone, and the few times I've tried it, most recently less than a month ago, I immediately uninstalled it.
I find voice calling very annoying and I used to find voice messages annoying; but now that in Wechat I can just have those voice messages, relisten to them in chat context and transcribe them easily (you can do all of that from whatsapp also of course).
Whatsapp and Wechat both behave well on my phone (Android 5something on a modern Huawei); Skype doesn't.
Re: WeChat’s world
#34Bit offtopic; For me it shows more, to western apps, how you build an app that always works... with wechat I can do sync and async voice calls, chat and photo sending with any connection, even if it is very slow or intermittend. No western app I have tried, including the actual phone app, does that as well as wechat. I can call, on 2g crappy China Mobile to colleagues in the EU where Skype and Whatsapp will not even…
One thing you need to be careful about is comparing a service in China with the service outside of China. For example Skype in China because of the monitoring put on it disconnects all the time where it would be fine outside of China. Services like WeChat have an inbuilt advantage in that their connectivity isn't as interfered with in the same way that western apps are.
Skype doesn't work in the west (I live 5 months per year in Spain and the rest I work in UK/NL/China/HK/Aus; it is no different in other places hence I like wechat which works well everywhere) either on bad connections; it won't connect or will be very slow/unreliable at sending even small pieces of text, let alone images.
Re: WeChat’s world
#35Soon, all the internet we hackers like will be called the darkweb
So true; I agree 100%!
Re: WeChat’s world
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only agree in theory. In practice, many small businesses in my area only have a Facebook homepage now (and no other website). Many friends and colleagues solely organise get togethers (farewells, engagement parties, birthdays) on Facebook. There have been quite a few web services I would have tried around the place, but they only supported 'Log in with Facebook' or 'Log in with Google+' or similar. Luckily I have a…
As a facebook avoider myself, I feel your pain! But I am happy with staying away from it, the choice is always there to sign up or not. I find it strange though that people think that these messaging apps are too large and their ecosystems are becoming too powerful, and yet at the same time there seem to be far too many different messaging platforms.
Well...They are that many platforms because the dominant ones are so obviously powerful and lucrative.
Re: WeChat’s world
#37What I am worried about is that Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple are copying the same model [1]. These companies are killing the open web. [1] How China Is Changing Your Internet (The New York Times) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8
The open web is still there. There are just many people that chose to not participate in it. There are still many who do and will probably do so for a long time. The one problem might be funding, but people will always think of something.
People are thinking of ways to break the open web too. Witness what just happened in India and was narrowly avoided because of hubris.
To add: there's still more attempts to break NN in India.
The civil groups which are being formed don't have the same environment or support that the first world has developed after years of civil liberties battles.
So yes, people are always thinking of something. It's just that the time to defend the commons is here.
Re: WeChat’s world
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
So don't use it? I'm not sure how your comments reflect on WeChat; it's not like stores are insisting on you paying through the app, or that businesses are forcing you to use WeChat to contact them. It's an added convenience, and it seems people like that.
I generally try to avoid these services, but it's impossible to not use some of them, because of their monopolistic position. I have to use Facebook sometimes because people use it to organise events, concerts and other things which are now inaccessible to me unless I use Facebook. Which is terrible. These services are bad because they are popular and successful and because they try to offer more and more services on…
I'm in a similar position to you in regards to facebook. My strategy is to use custom CSS to remove the elements of the site that only serve to distract me (newsfeed, etc.). I still get notifications for events, chat, etc. so it works out alright.
Re: WeChat’s world
#39.. which is terrible. Apps like these (including Facebook) are breaking the Internet. Now it's up to the social network to decide how resources are located (what standards?), who can access them, and for how long, etc. Saw a good video in your Facebook timeline ? Good luck finding it again after you refresh the page. It's a pity how 'the crowd' is now dictating the direction in which technology evolves. By trying to…
Agree that wechat and the like are going against the grain of the open nature of internet, but one positive side effect of wechat is that it will force many service and content to develop simple web apps instead of mobile apps, because it is the only way to exist there inside.
Most mobile apps need to die and be replaced by web apps, then wechat will die too, or become a mobile os, which is the same.
Re: WeChat’s world
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
This development is backwards, it reverses everything what is great about the Internet and made it such superior and successful. Instead of a network of networks where everyone can freely share information and talk to anybody, even directly via standardized protocols it's going back to heavily centralized systems, to the last bit controlled by a a small set of commercial entities which even do not see the user as a c…
What's outside this "cage" that consumers want?
freedom