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What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

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Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#51

Post by soylentcola »

lnanek2 wrote: post #3

Seems like a silly article. Even if they had feature parity today, very few people would use the replacement because their friends aren't using it, their family aren't using it, the shops they want to buy from aren't using it, the people they meet aren't using it...

Exactly. Setting aside the issues of whether Google would be preferable to Facebook as a central "portal" like this, they ran into the exact same issue when they launched G+.

At the time it had feature parity (and in many cases, superiority) with Facebook, but even though loads of people already had Google accounts for Gmail or Docs, etc. they didn't want to post to both Facebook and G+.

Since everyone was on Facebook and less than everyone was on G+, it didn't matter that you could silo your contacts more easily, integrate voice/video chat, make online/in person payments, or maintain some semblance of a personal "page" in addition to just looking at an activity stream.

And as we've seen over and over, once something is seen as an "also-ran" or less popular option, it largely becomes a joke among the potential userbase and definitely not a success.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#53

Post by yftsui »

mcelhinney wrote: post #15
m11a wrote: post #14

I think people that feel WeChat is simply a social network don't understand WeChat. Though the article doesn't say this, the comments here and popular opinion generally think that. From my time visiting China I'm not sure it's possible to live, in the urban areas, without WeChat. Payments are basically all through WeChat; I found places that didn't take Visa/Mastercard (or even know what those were, although that may…

Just to add that most Chinese businesses accept payments through AliPay along with WeChat.

Alibaba get to be endorsed by building computing infrastructure for the government, the cake is already split between Alibaba and Tencent.

There isn't much chance someone else could get a cut, even for state owned companies, I guess same applies to Cloud Computing market in China.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#54

Post by ardy42 »

wolco wrote: post #30
timwaagh wrote: post #16

I would be interested in a we hat replacement, but as soon as I read ethereum I thought: nah. Cryptocurrencies are just not compatible with mainstream consumption. Why? Because I get paid in euros. And you might get paid in dollars. And a wechat user gets paid in Yuan. But nobody gets paid in ethereum.

That's not true anymore. I've been paided and knows others who continue to be paid in bitcoin.

>> But nobody gets paid in ethereum.

> That's not true anymore. I've been paided and knows others who continue to be paid in bitcoin.

The statement is true, if properly understood. Colloquially, "nobody gets paid in [cryptocurrency]" means that it's so unusual to get paid in it that it's reasonable to assume no one does. That's not a statement that can be shown to be false with a few counterexamples.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#55

Post by shalmanese »

m11a wrote: post #14

I think people that feel WeChat is simply a social network don't understand WeChat. Though the article doesn't say this, the comments here and popular opinion generally think that. From my time visiting China I'm not sure it's possible to live, in the urban areas, without WeChat. Payments are basically all through WeChat; I found places that didn't take Visa/Mastercard (or even know what those were, although that may…

Nowadays, it's literally impossible to live in China without either WeChat or Alipay as health codes are integrated into the apps and it can be impossible to move outside without displaying your health code. Travelling on trains, planes and long haul busses now require you to have the app.

I don't think enough has been made about how extraordinary it is that a sovereign government has let such a core governmental function simply be handed over to for-profit businesses. It would be like, in the US, registering for your drivers license by Signing in with Google and being bound by the Google TOS. Commit an offense that causes Google to delete your account and now you can't legally drive anymore.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#56

Post by tanilama »

verall wrote: post #41
tanilama wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> simply because all competitors are blocked. International competitors may be. Till this day, I didn't see something come close to what WeChat is offering in China. WeChat is like Chrome, it is so big and ubiquitous in China, it can dictate standard. The online backup of messages itself is a pain point I agree, but local transfer is possible, though a bit cumbersome.

I think the international opinion is that there is no WeChat competitor in China because people are afraid to step on the toes of those in power. Chrome is enormous and ubiquitous because maintaining a modern browser is orders of magnitude more difficult than maintaining a chat application. Why do you think there a many competitors outside China but none in?

> I think the international opinion is that there is no WeChat competitor in China because people are afraid to step on the toes of those in power

But how can there isn't a WeChat competitor, that actually does all the things WeChat is capable of in US/EU?

Regarding WeChat as if it is another chat application only means you have never been a regular user of it, which is probably true to most HN folks.

WeChat actually has its own embedded WebView within it and JS execution engine also. It also has the whole Paypal counterpart ships with it. The whole WeChat ecosystem is probably on par with the whole Facebook, probably more complex than Chrome I would say.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#57

Post by verall »

tanilama wrote: post #56
verall wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the international opinion is that there is no WeChat competitor in China because people are afraid to step on the toes of those in power. Chrome is enormous and ubiquitous because maintaining a modern browser is orders of magnitude more difficult than maintaining a chat application. Why do you think there a many competitors outside China but none in?

> I think the international opinion is that there is no WeChat competitor in China because people are afraid to step on the toes of those in power But how can there isn't a WeChat competitor, that actually does all the things WeChat is capable of in US/EU? Regarding WeChat as if it is another chat application only means you have never been a regular user of it, which is probably true to most HN folks. WeChat actually…

I understand WeChat is more comparable to Google services (webview, payments, maps, social platform, chat) in terms of scope, but in America, Google gets challenged in specific areas and loses, like losing social to Facebook after many social media platform attempts.

Why doesn't WeChat get more competitors in just a specific area, like chat, which is a lot simpler, so a company could potentially do it better than WeChat?

WeChat doesn't get that kind of competition in China at all, and it really looks like its because of the government.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#60

Post by blackrock »

shalmanese wrote: post #55
m11a wrote: post #14

I think people that feel WeChat is simply a social network don't understand WeChat. Though the article doesn't say this, the comments here and popular opinion generally think that. From my time visiting China I'm not sure it's possible to live, in the urban areas, without WeChat. Payments are basically all through WeChat; I found places that didn't take Visa/Mastercard (or even know what those were, although that may…

Nowadays, it's literally impossible to live in China without either WeChat or Alipay as health codes are integrated into the apps and it can be impossible to move outside without displaying your health code. Travelling on trains, planes and long haul busses now require you to have the app. I don't think enough has been made about how extraordinary it is that a sovereign government has let such a core governmental fun…

I recall, this actually happened a few months ago, but with Uber.

What happened, was Uber started dropping customers that had a poor rating. Maybe they didn’t give a $5 tip, so the driver gave them a poor rating. Who knows why.

But the result is that the public, the customer in question, can no longer use Uber’s services.

This is terrifying, in that Uber wanted to eliminate public taxi services, and privatize it on their proprietary platform.

If you think this through, then what could be the potential long term effect of this?

Possibly that we as consumers, are now beholden to some random rating system, by some private company, that has the final authority to withhold essential public services from us.

And from what we have seen, these private businesses have an effective lobbying system, that can get lawmakers to draft laws in their favor.

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