When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China | Hacker News Reader

When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China

a16z.com

165 pointsrxin58 comments

I live in China, and resisted using wechat for a year or so, until it became clear that I was essentially removing myself from the majority of China's online world. I'm still highly annoyed when I get seven minutes' worth of 30-second voice clips from someone, or when people insist on using it as a replacement for email (essentially, using it as a replacement for all internet-based communication, period), but it's impossible to ignore.

And I'll admit, finding the wallet thing was a bit of an "a ha" moment for me.

And lastly, it became obvious that the only way to promote my company and its business to a Chinese audience was to run an official wechat account for it.

So there we are. I just got a new phone, and wechat was the first thing I installed.

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're the same.

BUT...

Do as locals do and maintains multiple bank accounts with different banks, and multiple credit cards with different banks.

This is not unique to China, but is also the case here. And it doesn't come from internet security, just from 'this is how it has always been done' via various banking promotions and access to local branch (China's banking network is, by policy, branch and region based). But it works here. I know no one that even keeps all their money in the same account, let along allows access to the same account via WeChat.

The big issue: WeChat is Tencent's bid to become a bank with full suite financial services. It will work against monoliths like Visa and MasterCard, even UnionPay. Because they don't bother with charging a transaction fee. What merchant doesn't like that?

Without a transaction fee, where do they make money?

Chinese don't even really know what Email is. For most of them email is "that second chat function in QQ which for some reason is more complicated. no idea why anybody uses it".

Also as you pointed out in the end, it's not just that you remove yourself from the Chinese internet world. You don't have access to China in general without it. It's so integrated in people's daily life that it's nearly impossible to separate online and offline any more.

It 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 their app ecosystem looks a lot more like ours.

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.

More likely that the US is ahead. The GFW heavily props local companies. Chinese internet companies are much less market-tested than US companies.

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.

China has an educated urban population about equivalent in size to the entire population of the US, and they're all using WeChat. My wife is a Nurse, has a 2:1 degree and although born in China has lived and worked in the UK since 2000 and she uses WeChat all the time, as do our kids. Educated non-techies don't want diversity, they want functionality and community.

Yup. My English sister has been using it because she gets better quality voice than Skype. Maybe Wechat is winning because it's the better product.

Please spellcheck "educated populous" before claiming another country doesn't have one.

It's a platform, it could certainly evolve to cater for different options.

Consider what Facebook tries to with its Messenger app, I bet $5 that in 3-5 years, US will get its own ASIAN messaging app~

EDIT: I think you should compare Wechat to Chrome + its app store, only that here it is not a web browser(in fact Wechat do have a embeded browser) but a chating app.

I 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 than Korea? Those factors are certainly accurate with respect to their national PPP (3.7x and 9.9x), and explains the data they observe really well. But Japan didn't have a leapfrogging experience, as they claim. Korea is a bit more complicated, but nonetheless, not cut-and-dried.

Why WeChat in particular? The other apps compared—LINE and KakaoTalk—arguably became dominant in their countries the same way WeChat did: bundling. It just comes with your phone. By that logic, do we label the Apple App Store, bundled with every iPhone, a "service" that takes a 30% cut of many of the transactions that occur there? Again, the App Store absolutely fulfills all the roles described in the article, notwithstanding their particular points about UI.

A16Z just isn't getting rich off Apple, so they're not going around hyping up an arguably the platform to end all platforms. Apple made $4.8 billion in iTunes and software on 1 billion iOS devices total by Q1 2015. It's not WeChat's estimated "$7 ARPU", but honestly, I bet Apple's is actually higher.

"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.

Which smartphone manufacturer is bundling WeChat in China?

I know that Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi doesn't, and these three together make up a good chunk of the market.

Line isn't bundled. It became popular through spammy marketing tactics (you can make free calls with Line!) then network effects. Kids can't use it (you need to prove you are 20+ and have a real cellphone number to get out of the noob garden), so I'm sure it won't be on top for much longer.

The beauty of WeChat is not it has tons of features, it's the tons of features are well hidden. As another user said, it's very natural to have used WeChat for quite some time and doesn't know all these existed. People always say it's not just a chat app, but if you use it just for chat then it's a pretty good one with good voice and video chat quality, supports group chat well and has a clean UI. All the other features are opt-in, hidden in several level of menus. There are no flashy confusing buttons, no daily reminder asking you to try some new feature, no distraction. For me and my friends who has long abandoned the bloated and flashy QQ for simple gtalk (before google got banned), WeChat is a breath of fresh air.

I am in China right this instant and (like everyone) I have wechat on my phone. Perhaps the services mentioned don't have much use/appeal to expats, but I have never heard of any of the stuff mentioned in this article. Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile).

At first I couldn't even find any of the features mentioned. some of the stuff (taxi's, planes) are hidden in some submenu called "bank cards" which I originally thought was for unlocking emoji and stuff. Perhaps I need to run an update, but I can't even find a "sub app store" of 3rd party verified accounts.

If you read further, adding these "sub apps" is like adding another account. Have you added something like a blogger before on Wechat? I think it works like that. You get the ID and you added like a friend. Then the "chat menu" is just a little different with other features inside. If you find a way I'd really appreciate a little update from you. I'm currently not in China, was also totally unaware of these capabilities, but I think they might be a major thing once uncovered, that Chinese people basically don't tell you about because they think it's common knowledge.

> Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile).

Well, I used China Unicom, but I noticed something similar. I got a SIM card about two years ago with "no internet plan". It turned out to have data connectivity anyway, so I just used it for that. Every month I'd get messages stating "you have used X amount of data, of which X is in excess of your monthly limit". And yet... I was spending much less money on phone service than even the cheapest official data plan, so I left it that way. Any idea how this sort of situation came about?

I have no idea. TBH I haven't paid my phone bill in a while. I don't know how I even have phone service.

Given how hard it was for me to do non cash commerce without a Chinese ID card, it's no surprise that you don't use those features. Do you use the app in English? Maybe the English version doesn't even have these features.

yeah I have it set to English. I don't think there is an English version per se, just different consumer facing text. Commerce shouldn't be too hard. I have a bank account here and my card is Union Pay.

You will see different content in the WeChat app depending on your phones language.

But as of today, the English version has all of these features mentioned. I have used the Taxi feature (滴滴打车）4 times today.

I also pay all my utilities and internet bill within WeChat.

When I am outside and people want to buy my products, they can scan my WeChat QR code in an instant.

where can I learn the details of becoming a verified seller / whatever? I have some side projects that could benefit greatly from this.

Well any individual can accept payments to their phone of course. But to actually have like some kind of store front on WeChat you need a "Public Account" as stated in the article.

Companies that are not registered in China can open one no problem, but only people using the English version will be able to see/access your "Public Account".

If you want to sell to Chinese people, you will need to register a Company in China. Of course there are ways around this, there always is in China.

Really depends on your strategy and what you are selling, some foreigners selling products here, just create a separate regular account to keep their buyers/followers updated on latest news/products, and talk directly on wechat to accept payment.

Any questions bartnanka at gmail

The post fails to mention that WeChat is protected from competition against other major global apps. If Google, Facebook, et al, were allowed to operate freely in China, WeChat would get picked apart.

Yes, there are a lot of cool things about WeChat and certain features that it arguably does better than its foreign counterparts, but it is still a mess. It is slow, cluttered, bloated, and full of crimes against design. The lack of competitive pressure really shows.

I imagine that if and when some real competition shows up, WeChat will evolve into a full-blown mobile OS.

Yes, quality alternatives and things exported from other cultures are very important here. Like I indicated in my comment MSN was the choice for groups more open to western cultures. Communication, sociality and tools used could be very culture sensitive.

I like how "official account" are lightweight apps. They are like the web with push notifications, online identity, and payment integrated into the web browser. The usual web can fulfil the features of official accounts in theory, but it's awkward. 1. push notification -> email 2. online identity -> login to fb, twitter, github, or website specific login 3. payment -> authorize paypal, bitcoin, amazon, bank

Whenever u want to do something on the web (e.g. buy a ticket), u have to figure out how to login (worse if you have to create a new account), how to make payment, and check your emails for confirmations and updates. That's enough friction to make a user hunt for alternatives. On top of that, the website make not work well on your mobile phone.

I've traveled to China about 2-3 times each year for the last few years. I strongly recommend that people who travel to China install WeChat. Not only is it guaranteed to work in China, but it gives you instant street cred when you're there.

It's very, very common for people to say to me, "Wow, you have WeChat? You are so Chinese!" (I don't look Chinese at all, and my Mandarin is still at an elementary level, so this is clearly a cultural compliment!) It's the easiest, fastest, and cheapest thing you can do to make a connection with any hosts, friends, or business colleagues you meet there.

WeChat does indeed have tons of features. I've used it for personal and group communication, but also for video chats (when Skype went crazy on me), and it was solid. My Chinese teacher and I use it to exchange messages and photos, either when I'm visiting China or when we're outside of class time. I'm on a few groups, and it's a surprisingly clean and easy-to-use program for group chat.

I also use WhatsApp, and while that has a much nicer interface, it's not obvious to me that it's superior to WeChat.

Isn't it just users with QQ numbers pick a slim version (which is more adapted to mobile use cases) of QQ on mobile devices? QQ number is something almost everyone on internet owns back in early 2000s in China. The number became the utility. As long as one has internet connection, one does not need a phone number to get connected.

I don't like WeChat. But that's what you have to use since that's where everyone you know are. MSN once had the chance to complete with QQ, but it gave up. And everybody had no better choice but picked up their old QQ number.

From another perspective, it's also accompanied with the rise of local business, which shifted the attitude towards local society recognition.

Money makes then ugly now pretty.

It 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.

WeChat is so much better than other messaging platforms that I'm willing to get on it in spite of privacy concerns. I have never noticed an ad and I'm in complete control over what messages I receive. It just feels so much better than Facebook or Twitter where it's obvious that my data is the product. I have no idea what kind of things WeChat does with its massive amounts of data, but at least they have legitimate revenue streams that don't involve shoving unwanted content in front of me.

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 :(

Just downloaded this app and activated it. Now I can give all my info to chinese government instead of NSA.

Pretty sure you're still giving it to the NSA too.

I am a equal opportunity app user. ;-)

I use Wechat for years. I was totally unaware of its power. Speechless.

At least Wechat had pushed two things powerfully, one is QR Code, the other one is HTML5.

Who in their right mind uses QR codes!?! As a human you have no idea where that thing is pointing, so why on earth would you trust it? At least with a URL I have half a chance of knowing if I'm about to be hit by a phishing attack.

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, not the web browser.

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 mercy of the source of the QR code, with no real way of being able to validate it before scanning.

This attack wouldn't work. Scanning a QR code which goes to a non-WeChat URL will flip to WeChat's built-in browser, which looks very different from the payment dialogue box.

In any case, how are QR codes different from text URLs? Do you check the destination of every web link and/or button before clicking? Do you disable JS so that you can be sure that the URL displayed in the status bar isn't different from the one which will really be launched?

In this case, the scanning is done by the Wechat app not some general-use browser. You would assume they check the validity of the data in the QR code and don't do simple redirection to a random web page.

What you say is true, and makes no difference. QR codes are very popular and in very common use in China.

Yup, now when I wanna pay for some drink, I only need to take out my mobile, then open wechat, then scan the QR code showed on the vending machine screen.

Like this: http://i.imgur.com/mlIr3QP.jpg

Vending machines in the US only take coins, like a post-apocalyptic stone age world. So ahead of time...

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.

Wechat is shit. why Line has been blocked in China?

The usual bogeyman, "terrorism":

https://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/07/us-southkorea-chi...

Mobile IM is the new browser.

The elephant in the room is WeChat and mobile. Has been for 3 years.

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