
How WeChat faded into the silence in India - HalfRebel
https://factordaily.com/how-wechat-faded-into-the-silence-in-india/
======
yorwba
WeChat seems to have never tried very hard to adapt their app for
international users.

The English interface is reasonably well-tested (many of my Chinese friends
use it to practice their English), but other languages might cause overflowing
UI elements because the translated text is longer than accounted for.

That problem also affects the English version in some places e.g. when adding
a contact, the short introduction you can write to explain who you are and why
you're adding them has a length limit. It's probably enough for Chinese text,
but requires being very concise when using English.

Many features are designed to prevent virality. Comments on a friend's
timeline ("moments") are only visible to your shared friends. Small chat
groups can be bootstrapped by scanning a QR code or by typing a shared
passcode simultaneously, but beyond 100 users newcomers need to be invited by
a member first. Comments on public articles are hand-picked by the author and
only the author can reply directly. There used to be a feature displaying
trending articles, but it seems to have been removed.

Those limitations prevent regime-critical opinions from spreading too quickly,
but they also mean that only users with a large social circle on WeChat are
going to stick with the app.

The article mentions women being harassed via the "people nearby" feature. My
impression is that it is mostly used by men looking for hookups and by "women"
who are prostitutes or pretend to be prostitutes to scam those men.

Successfully entering a market without already-strong ties to China would have
required making large changes about the way their app works.

~~~
vorg
The people nearby and friend invite requirements being in problem in India but
not in China can be explained by:

> QQ messenger – already had over 750 million monthly active users by the time
> WeChat launched. A user could port her entire QQ social graph to WeChat by
> just logging in with her QQ ID.

It sounds like WeChat is really just a renamed QQ of sorts. So any adoption
comparison of messenging app uptake in other countries with that of WeChat in
China should use the QQ launch of 1999, which makes WeChat's rise to ubiquity
far less impressive.

~~~
dangrover
More impressive is that, while this was going on, the original QQ quickly
pivoted the actual mobile version of QQ in competition with WeChat.

Mobile QQ had more users than WeChat until 2015, and even today, there remain
parts of the country + user segments that strongly prefer QQ on mobile.

------
0xcafecafe
It's interesting how ubiquitous whatsapp has become in India that it has
become a verb. My parents and other older generation folks often say "whatsapp
this to me".

~~~
otoburb
WhatsApp seems to have similar widespread market adoption in Brasil[1] too.

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/whatsapp-i...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/whatsapp-
is-upending-the-role-of-unions-in-brazil-next-it-may-transform-
politics/2018/06/09/777e537e-68cc-11e8-a335-c4503d041eaf_story.html)

~~~
davchana
Orkut too was much popular in India & Brazil, looks like these both countries
have similar users.

~~~
pkaye
From my limited experience, I know in India you can get a lot of SMS spam. I
wonder if people migrated to whatsapp for that reason?

~~~
abhgh
I think one of the bigger reasons was something the article touches upon -
image sharing. Internet connections can often be sketchy, and Whatsapps
compressed image sharing often ran circles around its competitors.

The other reason was the identity to phone number mapping and the ease of
setting up communities with those identities.

Yet another reason was you didn't need to separately pay for a mobile data
package and a SMS package anymore - WhatsApp replaced SMSes and it fit
frugally into the data plan.

I know that in my circles these played a big role. Reason 1 was especially
significant for my parents/older relatives since my conversations with them
are not text heavy (maybe them getting used to a device to type in for casual
communication is a factor) - we often share images, family photos - and
WhatsApp killed it in this niche use-case.

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bruceb
TL:DR WeChat was too big for phones back few years ago when many people didn't
have space to spare and data was expensive and slow. WhatsApp compressed files
so they loaded quicker and you could keep more of them.

Then in 2016, Tencent for some reason invested in Hike Messenger when it was
already in trouble. Hike was created by the son of a telecom guy. Sorta if the
son of Verizon's CEO created an instant messenger app and got investment and
support from his dad and the company.

~~~
pmlnr
The last time I tried Wechat it slurped into the 300MB range after
installation (apk + app data) - I have 3 contacts there.

Comparison:

    
    
        WhatsApp apk 39.86MB (2018-10)
    

I have a few leftover installers for ancient windows, eg. XP, for the fun and
memories.

    
    
        1.9M Apr 18  2009 SkypeSetup.exe (2.6 I think)
        8.7M Dec 15  2007 trillian-v3.1.9.0.exe
    
    

I so badly want the ancient skype back.

~~~
fooker
Ancient Skype pioneered the concept of having a shim setup and downloading the
actual setup.

~~~
pmlnr
That's... valid, though I seem to recall that particular version was skype
itself. I need to install that on an XP without internet now to verify.

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thedancollins
Can anyone tell us if WeChat's inability to flex to the Indian market was
intentional and "arrogant" or was it unintentional? They call them "blind
spots" for a reason.

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type-2
hike is dead, everyone uses whatsapp, the kids use snapchat, and people use
telegram for large groups / interests.

~~~
nolok
I'm not sure what your message is supposed to be saying / bringing to the
table.

Also, what a very localised generalisation. The article is about how the
dominant app in China is faring in India. Other countries have different
usages.

Eg near both india and china Line and fb messenger are dominating Thailand
while Whatsapp has trouble there (lots of people have it, nobody uses it),
snapchat is still hisptery/rare, wechat is limited to chinese expats and
nobody has even heard of telegram.

~~~
type-2
Just my personal observations. I thought we were talking about use of chat
apps in India so of course it makes sense for me to talk local. Another
personal observation; the tibetan community in india uses wechat, snapchat is
very popular among the youth, so is instagram. FB is for old people. The
important thing to take away from the article was that _" India is divided
into three consumer segments: the first 100 million, mainly the urban or
affluent Indians and are the main targets of indulgent e-commerce brands; the
second 100 million classified as the aspiring class; and the last a little
over a billion — three segments he calls the splurgers, strivers and
survivors."_ and wechat appealed to none

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exabrial
Perhaps backdooring by the Chinese government?

~~~
exabrial
To the downvoter: I'm sorry but this is not speculation but a statement of
fact. All Chinese communication systems are state mandated to be backdoored,
and given the industry, state officials get an automatic share in the company
and a seat on the board. It's not too say the CIA/nsa/FBI hasn't tried to do
the same in America, but it's _legal_ to provide secure software here, whereas
in China it's illegal.

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mrweasel
What supprised me is that you need to design your app around the fact that the
entire country has a stalker problem. That really annoys me.

~~~
westiseast
I think that point in the original article isnt 100% accurate.

The ‘People Nearby’ feature can be turned off in the settings, but you also
have to click into it to use it - it’s by no means automatic (ie. you sign
into Wechat and suddenly it start getting random harassing messages). Your
visibility expires after a few minutes.

It’s never been used as a feature to add a contact - in China is was mostly
used for hookups in the early days, and now if you’re in a big city it’s
mostly prostitutes and/or people trying to sell products.

Chinese women using that feature would absolutely have received ‘stalking’
messages, but that’s basically the same as women receive on _any_ kind of
dating or hookup app.

The only difference I can see (speculating somewhat about Indian users) is
that Chinese users have always seemed quite happy to use an app for their
work/business/friends/school that also includes basically sex-on-demand type
features. I know whenever criticisms of Wechat are brought up in the West, a
lot of people focus on the fact that how could you recommend this app to your
dad or gran or kids, knowing that it has this weird dark and nefarious corner
in it.

So I dont think it’s fair to say India has a stalking problem based on this -
more like, Wechat has a weird feature that enables potential sexual harassment
that Chinese users don’t seem to care about.

~~~
yorwba
> Your visibility expires after a few minutes.

Last I checked, it was 6 hours. You can clear it manually, but that might not
be obvious to a first-time user who clicked through the explanatory pop-up
without reading. (Or maybe that was added later.)

~~~
dangrover
This is set differently based on account region. International users have a
higher expiry time.

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kawaiiKitty123
After reading the article, much more assertive on DO NOT USE Whatsapp. Hate
being sent messages from strangers. Even I have someone on my contact,
probably it is someone I somehow know from work or long-time-no-see met-once-
person, why do you you want to have them on your social chatting app?

