
How China is Cashing in on Group Chats - jmsflknr
https://a16z.com/2019/09/06/china-is-cashing-in-on-group-chats/
======
narrator
"On WeChat, for example, group chats are discovered entirely by word-of-mouth
or QR code—there is no global search option. The QR code is automatically
disabled once a group reaches 100 members. Once the group grows to that size,
users can only join if invited by a friend; groups are capped at 500. This
means that even large group chats have a built-in social filter, since anyone
who joins the group is likely the friend of at least one other existing group
member. As a result, every group feels like a secret, known only to other
members."

I couldn't imagine Facebook limiting group size. It seems like mass groupings
and mass trends are kind of the bread and butter of western culture. I am
reminded of how anti "Sorcery of the Spectacle" this is.

 __ __* The paranoia about mass action in china has created a new kind of
artificial collectivism /individualism hybrid: The capped size group. ____* We
are seeing a new form of social organziation! People, this is momentus!
Seriously, go read "Sorcery of the Spectacle" again and think deeply about
what this means. It's practically a re-conquering by the proletariat of the
social sphere!

The no global search thing is crazy. You actually have to know people who tell
you about things? How absurdly 1990s! The whole thing reminds me a bit of the
mailing list culture of the late 90s. That all got eaten by Facebook groups,
but it could have been something different.

"Cultivating a sense of safety is key. Unlike WhatsApp and Signal, which
reveal users’ private cell phone numbers to the group– or the now-defunct
chats within Facebook Groups, which exposed users’ real identities–WeChat
allows its users to adopt aliases. Those anonymous usernames act as a privacy
shield, giving users control over how their identities are displayed. (Though
it’s hidden from other group users, WeChat does require a phone number and
real-name verification to sign up, which curtails anonymous troll abuse.)"

So they've learned from 4chan!

~~~
yorwba
Group size caps don't do a lot to limit mass trends. Once a group hits the
cap, the administrator will simply open a new one and tell everyone to join
that instead. People in only one of the groups obviously can't speak to those
in the others, but the administrators can make announcements in all groups,
which is enough e.g. for organizing a large event.

Even requiring invitations past 100 members doesn't mean you need some kind of
personal connection. Instead of the group QR code, organizers can post their
personal one and then add everyone to the group who messages them. It might
slow down spammers who constantly try to join random groups, because they
won't know whom to ask for an invite.

Lack of global search _for groups_ also isn't much of a hurdle, since you can
still globally search for posts inviting people to join a group. It does mean
that there's a niche for companies who create groups and assign members to
them based on some criteria, as described in the article.

And regarding usernames and anonymity: they work a bit differently than you
might expect. Every WeChat user has a unique identifier which is random by
default, but can be set to something intelligible if you want to make it
easier for others to add you by searching. Then there's a global username,
which is shown to your contacts and in groups by default. Per-group aliases
don't completely override that; you can still find out someone's global
username by looking at their profile. So most people set their alias to their
real name in groups that require it and stay pseudonymous otherwise. You can
also set aliases for your own contacts, which helps recognize people who
constantly change their name and avatar.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

~~~
188201
The group size thing is of course easily bypass. It was not intended to be a
preventive measure, but a reminder from Big brother that we are watching you.
People are required to use real name and other personal information to
register and law enforcement can freely read those information. It was not
unheard that people would raid by police for their online activity.

So, the group size cap is just a rule to say if your group was not over the
cap, you will be fine. If you bypass that somehow, you enter a grey area where
the government may or may not inference you depending on the nature of the
event.

~~~
powerapple
I remember there is law punish people spreading false information, it starts
with 500 people.

------
mark_l_watson
I like the idea of building small groups on platforms like WeChat, especially
the online school. Sounds like a good way to leverage one instructor helping
100 students.

The big problem however is getting locked in on one proprietary platform. I
guess what we can realistically hope for is for there to be three or four big
players and competition will keep them from being exploitive monopolies.

I still think that we are going to end up with a world out of William Gibson’s
cyber punk sci-fi novels: a few mega corporations with small groups,
arcologies, and individual hustlers living on platforms they don’t control. A
mixture of mega corps with small scale entrepreneurs.

~~~
kajmagnusmobile
What about not only the teacher helping the students, but the students also
helping each other?

And each question can get it's own topic -- there's a chat but it need not be
used for everything?

And, an open source platform? A university can choose to install on their own
server.

Then have a look at Talkyard:

[https://www.talkyard.io/use-cases](https://www.talkyard.io/use-cases) (I'm
developing it)

------
dragonsh
Well this sows seeds of mistrust. If commerce infiltrate our private
conversation, it turn from convenience to creepy.

Every conversation will invoke a feeling that someone is trying to sell
something for profit.

This is one of the issues in modern commerce in China.

~~~
llarsson
Sounds like a whole platform built for MLM type of commerce. Somebody you
ostensibly trust and think you know just tries to sell you stuff.

~~~
PakG1
Social commerce would be different from MLM though. MLM has incentive to
recruit salespeople and then profit off of the salespeople you recruit,
usually several levels down. This creates immense pressure on those at the
bottom, as their revenue potential is much more difficult to realize. China
started heavily regulating MLM due to the social problems it was creating
among a large populace that was only still just starting to develop their
economy. M without the multiple levels (ML from MLM) is completely different
and still feasible in this social setting.

~~~
dragonsh
In China Amway (called Anli in China) and Mary Kay generates over 40% of its
global revenue. It's memebers actively promote and use WeChat and their
relationship with personal friend for sale.

All the live broadcaster use their friends network. Every conversation
happening in WeChat or other messaging app is analyzed multiple times to
figure out what could be sold to those people to generate profit.

It becomes tiring when you can only see in everything one do someone is trying
to sale something, be it taking taxi, trying to talk with your friends,
watching movie, even when people sleep companies try to analyze their sleep
and process the information to find what can be sold to that person.

------
thunderbong
This is a seriously interesting article. I've never thought of chat
applications the way these guys are doing it.

------
dfischer
Personally I’ve been working on Chat based commerce in the U.S for over 5
years now... crazy. The adoption in US markets is definitely slower compared
to SEA. Habits and behavior are much more in favor of mobile, and specifically
chat for everything experiences in SEA. WeChat is the prime example that
doesn’t have a strong comparison in the West.

However, the tide is here past the hype of “Chat Bots” and I’m happy to be
working on this problem for helping people find jobs. Messaging is the
ultimate form of UX. Communicate it, and it’s done.

At Edvo, we’re having a lot of positive feedback from the job seeker side over
Messenger. We have a lot to work on still but, definitely see and feel the
adoption of messaging based commerce and general ux.

It’ll be interesting how that transitions in a post mobile era. I’m excited!

~~~
Hendrikto
> Messaging is the ultimate form of UX

Bold claim. I do not think this is true outside of very specific use-cases.

~~~
snazz
If you’re interacting with a human, I’ll argue that synchronous messaging is
the most efficient and comfortable way to communicate. Imagine how much faster
customer service problems are to solve that way than with a ticketing system,
email, or phone (where you have to wait on hold and one operator can only help
one person at a time).

~~~
9dev
The biggest advantage of messenger apps is that they're both synchronous and
asynchronous, depending on the client and user behaviour. I'm working at a
place that builds a customer service platform based on connecting messenger
apps to a web client for agents to work in. The speedup you notice compared to
Callcenter agents is astounding - they can handle multiple cases
simultaneously, without having to wait for individual customers. They, in
turn, can respond whenever they like to. It's really cool!

------
RonaldSchleifer
So we are essentially talking about a more accessible and immediate forum, not
really anything more; this forum you are currently reading, transposed into a
group chat functionality, like the yahoo chat rooms of the 90s, on mobile.
That’s all this group chat thing is. But whatever, let’s do this, “what a
genus and wonderful innovation. It’s definitely worth $100 billion, pre-
money!”

~~~
duguxu
It's definitely worth $100 billion today if it will be "worth" (valued) $200
billion tomorrow.

------
johnmarcus
This reads like it was written by a Chinese government official trying to sway
HK protesters. WeChat asks for so much personal info in order to onboard, and
your messages are definitely monitored and censored by the government - funny
how they left out that tiny detail. It is the exact opposite of privacy and
secure messaging.

------
simplecomplex
WeChat is a financial disaster for all we know. Tencent doesn’t share any
financials. Internet chat has always been hugely popular. Building a
profitable business out of Internet chat has not been so easy historically.
Historically, successful free chat software have been loss leaders (FB
messenger for FB, yahoo messenger, AIM for AOL). Snapchat has never made
money. LINE is the only chat app I know of to really turn a profit from just
their app, and it has come at the expense of active users and squeezing more
advertising into the app.

Odd title “cashing in” considering there’s no talk of the _business_ behind
WeChat...

~~~
contingencies
_WeChat is a financial disaster for all we know._

1.4 billion people use it as their dominant payment method. Not mobile payment
method, but payment method _full stop_. I think it's safe to say they're
incredibly profitable.

~~~
simplecomplex
They could be losing money on 1.4 billion in transactions. Their super low
transaction fees might indicate WeChat Pay is a loss leader.

That’s my point. Tencent intentionally hides WeChat in their financials. You
assume it’s wildly profitable because Tencent is. Usually when a company tries
to hide the financial narrative of a product it’s not because it’s doing
great.

“We consider payment at this point in time as to [sic] infrastructure service
rather than a service that generates profit for us. And I think that status
will maintain for quite some time,” Martin Lau

~~~
contingencies
I don't think you understand the model. People transfer money in, then leave
it there. It literally can't lose money.

