
How WeChat Came to Rule China - msh
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/1/16721230/wechat-china-app-mini-programs-messaging-electronic-id-system
======
CodeSheikh
The govt blocking the access of similar foreign apps (Whatsapp, Skype etc.) to
the Chinese people has some role to play in the popularity of it. But yeah
nice to see "Made in China first, for Chinese first" idea working out well for
local investors/technologists.

~~~
sniperjzp
> The govt blocking the access of similar foreign apps (Whatsapp, Skype etc.)
> to the Chinese people has some role to play in the popularity of it.

This is not accurate. Along with WeChat and QQ, people can freely use Skype
and MSN messenger in China. The success behind WeChat and QQ relies on their
rich features, fast iterations, etc.

I still remember that during the 360 vs Tencent event,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_v._Tencent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360_v._Tencent),
a lot of people switched to Skype as their communication tool to against the
company Tencent, but not long after that people switched back to WeChat and
QQ. It's simply because WeChat and QQ are easier to use.

~~~
xbeta
> This is not accurate. Along with WeChat and QQ, people can freely use Skype
> and MSN messenger in China. The success behind WeChat and QQ relies on their
> rich features, fast iterations, etc.

Really?

I am not sure about Skype which is not even a strong contender anymore in our
mobile generation, but WhatsApp is definitely blocked by China[1]. And MSN was
dead long ago.

[1]: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/whatsapp-blocked-in-
china/](https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/whatsapp-blocked-in-china/)

~~~
chingjun
WhatsApp was only started to be blocked recently (last year) when WeChat was
already way ahead of WhatsApp in the market. WeChat's success was not due to
lack of contender

~~~
xbeta
Fair enough, but does WhatsApp put out any market in China? The strategy is a
completely different approach. WhatsApp simply building 1 product for the
entire globe where WeChat just focus on 1 monoculture.

Have WhatsApp spent effort to build "that product" to China, and they would
fail on it.

And I don't see WhatsApp is super pissed that they lost this 1.3B market
anyway.

And in a hindsight, it is probably better for WhatsApp to not build "that app"
for China. Imagine spending all those resources, money into a product and
simply turn off by China government overnight. It's a big loss for that
investment.

TL;DR do not enter China if you haven't yet finished conquered the entire
world.

~~~
rxin
I live in the Bay Area and I use both WhatsApp and WeChat and I would say
WeChat is a significantly better product, with more features and better
video/audio quality. When I visit China, WeChat is another order of magnitude
more indispensable due to its great integration with all the other services
(eg, mobile payment penetration through WeChat effectively 100%).

~~~
xbeta
Hmm... I don't know, but my app is less heavyweight on said WhatsApp than a
bloated WeChat. But that's my opinion.

When I send a message, why does it need to be so bloated. I just wanna send a
message. Does being lightweight a feature too?

~~~
rxin
What's bloated about it?

From the UX point of view, it's pretty lightweight for most common operations.
Goes into the app, finds the contact, sends message, done. There is virtually
no difference between WeChat, WhatsApp, and Apple's own Messages. For many
other operations that are less common, WeChat is easier to use and manage
(e.g. sending emojis, voice memo, photos).

From an app size point of view, I just checked on my iPhone. WeChat takes up
157.3MB, whereas WhatsApp takes up 105.9MB. The difference seems minor (just a
few photos).

~~~
mcny
WeChat's success is something I find... strange. I just thought uses don't
want everything and the kitchen sink in the same app but we chat success story
shows I'm wrong? I still don't get it.

I have that Facebook messenger even has draw over other apps permission on
Android. I hate the pop up chat. Am I out of touch?

~~~
jebeng
Being able to send money to people via chat app is pretty appealing to many
people.

Also, there was a post on here highlighting Japanese web design and you might
say it's also a kitchen sink approach. And then someone posted, or the article
updated and added(I don't remember exactly) some nice links to show that the
exact same design phenomenon exists in major websites in Taiwan, Korea, and
China.

We might theorize that users in these particular markets might want everything
but the kitchen sink in one app, or one website. I'm not saying that's
necessarily the case, but there's definitely some indicators.

Would be very interesting if it's a case of actual rejection of western style
minimalistic designs, rather than something like it being all they've known
and thus have simply gotten used to.

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ftoo
Before wasting your time on this hopelessly optimistic article, here is the
most important sentence:

“Tencent is a content partner of The Verge in China.”

~~~
intopieces
The article is up front about the privacy invasion of the app, and mentions
Amnesty International’s 0 out of 100 score for that reason.

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tsunamifury
The general theory that I have is that the Great Migration brought millions of
chinese citizens to the city, who neither had bank accounts, credit cards, or
phones. The pathway to connecting with friends, businesses, and money or even
finding jobs immediately became "Get WeChat and a phone." This lead to a
reenforcement cycle with businesses, that they had to offer services on WeChat
to get new customers and combined with the injections of cash due to the
overall modernization of China, it allowed WeChat to grow even more. And of
course, add in the local government blocking foreign competitors.

Thus a large portion of some individuals where basically introduced to modern
computing via phones and via chat and businesses started advertising "Chat-
first" as well.

I've seen roughly the same in India with WhatsApp, but with a lot less
discrete functionality.

Feel free to correct my theory though, it's mostly outside observation...

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The lower end you go, the more popular QQ is over WeChat, at least that was
the case a few years ago (I'm sure WeChat is over dominating now). WeChat
started to become popular firmly among the middle and upper classes as far as
I could tell.

~~~
tsunamifury
Thats a fair point that asks 'Why did WeChat become the upper/middle city
class chat app of choice over QQ and others' and I'd love for someone to weigh
in there...

~~~
cmplxconjugate
Well I'd like to point out that 微信 (WeChat) does require a personal bank card
in order for monies to be transferred/stored on a persons account.

I think the two main contenders for payment apps are Wexin and Alipay (支付宝).
Both are vastly more popular than QQ these days.

WeChat and its dominance in its early days to a number of factors. Primarily
in its infancy this is: good advertising, uniqueness compared to QQ (think
MySpace -> FB), solid interface and voice memos. Voice memos were a killer
feature that is massively more popular than in England (my experience) and I
assume most of the West. Later on payments were added which enables anyone to
have a business (receive money for services) and huge convenience for shopping
or sending money to friends.

Alipay at the moment is less focused on social media like WeChat and more on
interlinking services (Cinema, Shopping, Mobile payments, Utilities, Lifestyle
etc). Also there's a massive advertisement campaign driving its use; currently
each 24 hours users can scan a red envelope (红包) QR code an receive credit on
their balance. I've receive $4~5 dollars a day, with an average of $1. Thats a
free breakfast for most people.

~~~
shalmanese
Typing Chinese is significantly harder than typing English. Thus, voice memos
offer a superior user experience. Building in Voice Memos as a first class
feature into the messaging UI was what got WeChat its initial push.

~~~
smallnamespace
Not really true IMO, because you can even use initialisms to type entire
phrases and sentences in pinyin and omit most of the characters.

Let's say you wanted to write 我很喜欢吃汉堡 (I really like eating hamburgers), you
can get away with just typing 'w h x h ch han bao' and predictive text gets
you the entire sentence.

Chinese text is well optimized towards readability and information density, at
the expense of taking a lot of work to manually write, but that calculus
completely changes if your writing system is smart enough.

~~~
DashRattlesnake
But that assumes a lot fluency with pinyin and the prediction system. A lot of
people are missing one or both.

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dangrover
Garbage article with no new information, regurgitating random bits of English-
language blog posts about the app, with no "how".

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ekianjo
Its like "why the trabant came to dominate the russian automobile market".

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cmplxconjugate
Having just returned from China after a year, I must also point out that 支付宝
(Alipay) is also extremely popular for payments. Also, tsunamifury noted that
their theory is that the wave of migrants "...who neither had bank accounts,
credit cards, or phones" is partly responsible. Again, I must point out
however that WePay requires a linked bank account in order to allow for the
transfer of money.

~~~
xbeta
Please also point out that that "linked bank account" is currently only work
for China banks. If you are using foreign banks, no luck. :-(

And every significant transaction required you to provide ID, which is
currently supporting China ID, some apps do have support for foreign
passports, but do you want to share your passports to those China apps?

~~~
woolvalley
If it makes you feel any better, most countries financial apps don't link with
foreign bank accounts either, unless it's a credit card. Credit histories also
don't cross borders easily.

SEPA & the EU is the special case exception I've found.

~~~
xbeta
> unless it's a credit card

Nope, that exception don't even existed in Alipay/WeChat Pay as well :-) Being
foreigner in China sucks.

~~~
chingjun
Any foreigners can open a bank account in China even on tourist visa. No
special documents needed other than your passport.

Yes, being a foreigner in China does suck but not for this case.

~~~
xbeta
I just return from a trip to China and yes I carried a 10yrs China visa to
open a bank with Bank of Construction in Guangdong province. No, the bank's
front desk refuse it and said they cannot accept foreign passports.

Having a "work" visa is possible though.

Please stop spreading rumours about China when it's not true.

~~~
chingjun
Not sure if things has changed but 1 year ago my brother in law has opened an
account in bank of China 中国银行 while he was on a 1 year traveling visa. You may
want to try with another bank

And no, we’re not trying to spread rumors :)

~~~
xbeta
I am curious what type of "traveling visa" was that, because a tourist visa
don't work for me. Also Chinese government change policies all the time and
rollout instantaneously. Whatever works 3-months ago don't mean it works now.

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ridiculous_fish
I understand WeChat to be effectively an application platform. It runs
messaging, payments, delivery tracking, and many more mini programs, and runs
on devices that are relatively old and underpowered by US standards.

How is this architected? Is there a platform/app separation, or just a pile of
spaghetti, or something in between?

~~~
sly010
Afaik on the application side most WeChat applications are just NSWebViews or
UIWebKit instances.

~~~
so33
Steve Jobs was right. HTML 5 really is the future of apps... at least under
certain circumstances.

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m3kw9
Don’t get too big, or you get Nationalized if the govt thinks they have too
much control on the people

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n1000
In my team a lot of people use WeChat. So I set out to give it a try. When I
was forced to leave my voiceprint [1], I chickened out and aborted the
registration.

[1] [http://blog.wechat.com/2015/05/21/voiceprint-the-new-
wechat-...](http://blog.wechat.com/2015/05/21/voiceprint-the-new-wechat-
password/)

~~~
dis-sys
I have been using WeChat on daily basis for 5-6 years now, this is the first
time I've ever heard the voiceprint feature. Checked my wechat client and the
feature is like 4 clicks away from the main UI, and you get choose to activate
it if you want.

~~~
n1000
Yes, my Chinese colleagues were also surprised. Apparently the requirement
seems to be a new thing.

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bonsai80
I got excited and clicked to see why so many people in China are avoiding
proprietary closed IM networks and using IRC instead.

Bummer, not what I thought :)
[http://www.irchelp.org/clients/unix/weechat.html](http://www.irchelp.org/clients/unix/weechat.html)

