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What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

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Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#61

Post by zelphirkalt »

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…

Of course it is possible to live there without WeChat. That's an illusion I get tired of hearing. Been there in 2019, done it, had no problems using cash. Probably Mastercard would also have wirked for buying a train ticket, if I had persisted and acted as if I did not have it in cash. (And no, no one robbed me.)

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#62

Post by izacus »

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…

> - For America/Europe: WeChat would never happen, unless there was severe monopolisation that allowed a company to roll something like WeChat out successfully, or the federal government / national governments mandated it

Isn't Apple ecosystem basically US/European WeChat? It's not a single app, but they use tight integration and single device lock to create essentially a full copy of all WeChat services with iMessage, Apple Pay, Health, etc? Apple basically control communications, payments and health data of their users and works with other vendors to integrate them primarily as payment, content and preferred identification provider.

You get all of that nicely packaged into a single box. The only difference is that you can't use it on a cheap phone.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#63

Post by sweezyjeezy »

izacus wrote: post #62
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…

> - For America/Europe: WeChat would never happen, unless there was severe monopolisation that allowed a company to roll something like WeChat out successfully, or the federal government / national governments mandated it Isn't Apple ecosystem basically US/European WeChat? It's not a single app, but they use tight integration and single device lock to create essentially a full copy of all WeChat services with iMessag…

If you go into a McDonald's in China there are self service touch screens. If you want to use these, the _only_ way to do it is with WeChat. You cannot use a credit card, if you don't have WeChat payments, you queue and pay in cash (this was my experience anyway). That's how ingrained WeChat is in Chinese society. You should think less about features and instead look at how it is actually used there.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#65

Post by system16 »

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…

It doesn't seem that extraordinary if in this scenario Google became an appendage of the federal government, providing it complete and unfettered access to its systems, complied to any and all requests without question, there was never concern for overreach or public backlash, etc.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#66

Post by shalmanese »

system16 wrote: post #65
shalmanese wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It doesn't seem that extraordinary if in this scenario Google became an appendage of the federal government, providing it complete and unfettered access to its systems, complied to any and all requests without question, there was never concern for overreach or public backlash, etc.

People outside of China have wildly unrealistic ideas about the true relationship between large Chinese tech companies and the government.

https://www.ft.com/content/760142e6-740e-11ea-95fe-fcd274e92... is sadly paywalled but it's an excellent account of the actual negotiations that have been going on between Tencent, Alibaba and the many different bureaucratic layers of the Chinese government.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#69

Post by freewizard »

You don’t just build a product like WeChat or Facebook. You grow your product to that level.

What WeChat/Facebook are today is highly path-dependent hence you don’t get to replicate that, and your intelligence and ambition probably won’t let you either.

Stop try to replace them, build sth different and help people in a new and better way. With that, you might be able to transcend them.

Re: What Would a WeChat Replacement Need?

#70

Post by verst »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #61
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…

Of course it is possible to live there without WeChat. That's an illusion I get tired of hearing. Been there in 2019, done it, had no problems using cash. Probably Mastercard would also have wirked for buying a train ticket, if I had persisted and acted as if I did not have it in cash. (And no, no one robbed me.)

No problems using cash? Sure, if you only go to the stores and restaurants catering to foreigners.

Last year I noticed I could no longer use cash to touch up my Shanghai Transportation card balance. There are still some touch up machines but they now only accept WeChat / AliPay QR codes for payment. I have to go to the one service counter in the station to use cash to touch it up and sometimes those aren't even staffed.

Not only that, but the Shanghai Metro has moved away from their own NFC Transportation cards to installing bar code scanners that directly use WeChat / AliPay QR codes when you enter and exit the station, then charge your account accordingly. They also have support for NFC and Apple Pay. But to set up the Transit Card in Apple Pay you need a China Union Bank Card. The alternative is to install the Shanghai Metro App, link that to AliPay with the new option for foreigners to add foreign credit cards (this by the way creates a virtual Chinese prepaid debit card which eventually will refund unused funds).

If you buy streetfood (from those BBQs late at night in the middle of city intersections for example in Shanghai) you now find that payment with WeChat may be the only option.

Beggars don't want cash and instead are displaying a big WeChat QR code to receive payments.

I was staying in my friend's local apartment complex. To enter the building you needed to use a WeChat app. Unfortuantely we couldn't register me because I didn't get a Chinese phone number this time. It took a lot of awkward conversations to eventually get someone to issue me a physical NFC key card, something they no longer do.

Here is also an article on the subject: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-mobile-payment-boom-chan...

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