
WeChat's App Revolution - 1gor
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-19/wechat-s-app-revolution
======
nneonneo
WeChat's "App Revolution" is by no means a _technical_ revolution, as several
other commenters have pointed out. There's nothing new with embedding a web
browser, nor with SSO, or integrated payments.

The revolution is the fact that this is an app with an install base
approaching one billion users (846M monthly active users as of Q3'16).
Anything they do is potentially revolutionary by virtue of sheer scale. They
are a platform as influential and powerful as Facebook is in the West. If they
decide they want to compete with the platform's application store, they will
provide strong competition.

WeChat has already beaten out most other payment methods in China for day-to-
day commerce - credit cards, cash, cheque, etc. It has beaten out most social
networks there (after the introduction of the "Moments" feature), and all
other instant messaging services including SMS. Taking over other application
functions is simply a natural progression for the rather unstoppable
juggernaut at this point - and third party app developers will be happy to
oblige.

~~~
simonh
My wife is Chinese but has lived in the UK since 2001 and is a British
citizen. In the early days she talked about us moving to China some day, but
now feels much more at home here. She absolutely loves WeChat and uses it all
the time. She uses it to keep in touch with old friends in China and new
Chinese friends in the UK. It also keeps her connected to contemporary Chinese
culture. So even outside China, WhatsApp's reach through the broader Chinese
community is almost total.

~~~
Markoff
well if she doesn't mind reporting everything to Chinese government in that
piece of spyware (you can't even launch it with blocked location permission)
and have censored speech with deleted inappropriate Moments posts and PRIVATE
communication, then it's nice app i guess

~~~
fornever
Maybe the US companies and government should have thought about that _before_
making that behavior normal in the digital world.

~~~
ralfd
In contrast to your sarcastic snark the normal behavior in the west is secure
end-to-end encryption (iMessage, Whatsapp).

~~~
fornever
I don't see how a slight improvement primarily in the last two years after
Snowden is "normal behavior"? WhatsApp ran without end-to-end encryption for
six years, so did Gmail without SSL as the default. The industry and
government has had two decades to impose "western values" through precedent,
standards or legislation. Instead they chose short-term profits and
intelligence operations. Users have few rights and even lower expectations.

------
pentae
_Apple Inc. isn 't taking this development lightly. It even prohibited WeChat
from using the term "app" as applied to mini programs._

Glad to see Apple once again using its tight grip on its developers to look
out for Apple.

~~~
akvadrako
And to deter lock in to WeChat's closed platform. Really, this is Goliath vs
Goliath - you want them fighting a bit, not working together.

------
dstaley
This is praising WeChat for having a built-in web browser that supports single
sign-on and credit card autofill.

~~~
a_c
I find it difficult to understand how these things are revolutionising.
Perhaps it has something to do with the culture background of the users?

~~~
pcr0
This video from NYT explains it what makes WeChat revolutionary as a platform:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8)

tl;dw

The revolution alludes to the fact that one app is taking over everything from
social networking, mobile payments, food, ticket sales, ride-hailing,
financial products, bill payments, and much more.

~~~
acchow
I watched the video. I still don't get it. Why would I want one app and
company to own all of that? I don't even want one phone manufacturer/platform
to own my messaging - I much prefer platform-agnostic Whatsapp over iPhone-
only iMessage.

Already the smartphone platform I use can do all of social networking, mobile
payments, food, ticket sales, ride-hailing, bill payments, etc on ONE device.
I just don't see what there is to be gained by pulling all this down into one
app? Switching between apps via APIs is already automatic and rather fast, and
will only get better over time. The NYT video makes a lot of mention of "you
haven't left the app". Why do I care? As long as I haven't left my phone why
do I care what app I'm in?

Having APIs for apps on a device to talk to each other allows for competition
and variety - won't it obviously win out?

~~~
aethertron
>Why would I want one app and company to own all of that?

Because one entity can control they way it's all integrated, they can bring UI
consistency and convenience by enforcing some degree of feature de-
duplication. E.g. Single sign-on, and a shared e-wallet.

>Having APIs for apps on a device to talk to each other allows for competition
and variety - won't it obviously win out?

Nope, there's no guarantee. There are benefits to both approaches. Different
people have different priorities, normies don't care this much about freedom.

If this is the future you want, you need to fight for it.

~~~
acchow
I don't actually care which future will be realized, I just want the better
experience. I just don't see how a one-company-does-all can possibly win out
over a free market of competition between companies and developers on an open
platform.

On the other hand, if WeChat eventually opens up its "app" to other developers
and companies, then it will effectively _become_ the operating system and
platform. At which point (1) this is "isomorphic" our current system and
offers exactly zero advantages (we are just changing where we place the label
"operating system") (2) it will be competing with iOS and Android, not with
other apps (3) they will have to release a phone that runs the WeChat OS

------
cocktailpeanuts
Those of you who think WeChat is innovative for doing these things while other
messaging companies like Facebook can't:

WeChat can make these moves because they know they have their back covered by
the government. Even if Apple wants to do anything about it, they know they
need to play nice with the Chinese government, and overall it makes more sense
for them to let WeChat do whatever just so that they can sell iPhones in
China.

Facebook can't do something like this easily. If Facebook went a bit too far
to do something like this, Apple will definitely stop them.

With WeChat it's not that simple.

My point is, there are many reasons why something works or doesn't work, and
many people tend to just see a single facet of the entire situation and
decide. Like how these American VCs idolize WeChat and other Asian tech
phenomenon and try to emulate them. "Who's the WeChat of America?" is the
stupidest question to ask when trying to build an innovative company.

------
nv-vn
Seems really similar to what Telegram has been trying to do for a while now.
First with basic bots, then bots using custom keyboards and stickers, then
with inline bots, and now with the game API (which basically allows you to
package arbitrary HTML/JS/CSS into a bot message).

~~~
paulftw
You are saying that the guy who cloned Facebook for Russian market (vk.com) is
now building WeChat for Russia?

~~~
Defman
It's not oriented on the Russian market at all. Many of us (I'm Russian too)
complains about Telegram not having Russian language by default. (but I don't
really care about it that much because I know English very well). More over,
Pavel Durov said that he won't do any business in Russia because if you don't
want to cooperate with their government, you may lost your business. He lost
his vk.com because of that.

------
EGreg
If we don't succeed in decentralizing user identity then centralized platforms
like Facebook and WeChat will win.

We need the Web to win in order for platforms to stay open, and innovation to
flourish, and power dynamics to be more healthy.

Here is me pontificating at length about it in a video:
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY)

~~~
ec109685
I don't think you should take it as a given that decentralization of login is
good. I do not want my credentials stored on every personalized web site that
I go to, so appreciate when I can sign in with one of my existing ids.

~~~
EGreg
It doesn't have to work that way. You _choose_ which domain you'd like to be
responsible for holding your identity and address book, and then choose to
authenticate with some domains and host some of your data on them. Those
domains each get a _different_ user id from your identity server, which knows
all your user ids on each of those other domains. Now you have a bunch of ids
in different communities but no one except the server you trust has to know
what they are. Thanks to 3rd party cookie policies, you can't easily be
tracked across domains either.

Only the people who you _want to share_ your ids on other services with will
know. Such as your friends. You might tell only a few people that you are
CrackerJack on porn.com, but you might tell everyone that you are FooManChu22
on Instagram. It's all up to you. And it should be seamless and automatic –
when you arrive at a new service, you should already have the ids of all your
friends on that service who shared it with you by now. You send this list to
the service in order to connect with those friends. And you can also get
notifications when a friend joins a service.

This is truly decentralized, private, secure, _and social_. Here's a diagram:
[https://qbix.com/diagrams/groups.png](https://qbix.com/diagrams/groups.png)

And if you want to learn more, go here:
[https://qbix.com/platform](https://qbix.com/platform) or email me.

~~~
candiodari
All that telling people sounds like a lot of work. Also how does discovery
work ? All these approaches seem to push nothing by default but that's not
that useful.

------
a_c
_and the idea is that users can call up useful features from third parties --
photo filters, language tools, ride-sharing services -- within the WeChat app_

As far as I can tell, the so called "Mini program" are just webpages? If so,
how can it "call up useful features like photo filters"? One would need to

1\. take a photo,

2\. upload to website,

3\. review the result and

4\. Repeat 1-3 if result not satisfied?

Am I missing something here?

~~~
nneonneo
Although they might be webpages, they may have access to extra APIs via WeChat
integration (the webview can expose additional functionality, for example). I
imagine, for example, that an app like Meitu (a popular facelift/beauty app in
China) could recreate their filters in WeChat with the help of a photo-
choosing extension API.

~~~
a_c
Thanks for your suggestion. I misunderstood the meaning of filter in the
article. I was thinking about the realtime effect as in Mac's photo booth.

~~~
HappyTypist
WebRTC

~~~
mcintyre1994
Is there a demo of Photo Booth in WebRTC? That'd be pretty cool!

------
Sanddancer
Their "revolution" is using federated logins and an integrated pay service. So
a google account or the like and google pay. About the only interesting take
home here is that developers would do well to keep their app sizes down and to
design for their market. Everything else, you can get from android and from
ios today.

~~~
pcr0
The revolution alludes to the fact that one app is taking over everything from
social networking, mobile payments, food, ticket sales, ride-hailing,
financial products, bill payments, and much more.

------
okreallywtf
Disclaimer: I haven't used WeChat at all, but its mini-programs sound just
like apps. Maybe it simplifies the process of installing and using them but
what does that do to the security model? Does that mean WeChat is in total
control of your information, providing it to 3rd parties that you may not have
verified for yourself?

Granted, there are plenty of problems with apps and security as it is, but at
least you can have separate registrations for each and one sketchy app doesn't
necessarily compromise your whole system.

Maybe the article doesn't make the point well or I'm just missing it.

------
josepi_
This is the sort-of obvious eventuality of a world filled with dozens of
different services. _Of course_ a new service will come that tries to bridge
them all together in a simple way that is efficient for the user. Imagine if
all the USA's cable channels were different apps that took up space on your
TV's hard drive (like phone applications). Now imagine your TV has a way of
visiting "lesser" channels (web browser). Now imagine that, eventually, the
channels you care about begin integrating into the web browser (the numerous
applications that now offer browser-based components). Now imagine someone
comes along and says you can use a single service to access all those channels
(shouldn't be hard to imagine that because it's how things are now..).

The innovation here, imo, is that WeChat is essentially a web browser that
looks and feels _very_ different from traditional web browsers. It's a big
deal given the conditions of today; i.e. cloud-based and browser-based
applications are becoming the norm. Interesting, for sure. I see a future in
it, anyway.

------
miguelrochefort
I will ask this again. Why is nobody here interested in building one app that
does it all? Nobody wants to have 100 apps on their phones, or create 1000
online accounts. Such an app would easily make most tech companies obsolete.
What part do people not understand?

~~~
Freak_NL
People here are probably on the cautious side of centralising all of their
online identities and activities into one app. Our privacy is under enough
threat as it is.

Besides, I don't want to migrate everything I do online to a smartphone (it
would have to be Android or IOS then, because that's all they support of
course — vendor lock-in is not so great for innovation) or a sanctioned PC OS.
In fact, most of the time I don't even want to run some service's software,
except for those that run in the sandbox that is my web browser (i.e.,
websites and web applications).

Actually, all things considered we already have that one app that does it all;
the web browser.

~~~
miguelrochefort
I think that privacy is unsustainable. I don't think we should strive to
protect it. We should work toward enabling people to live fully transparent
lives.

When I say "app", I mean all software including websites. The main problem to
tackle is not a technical one, but a design one. It's with the UX
fragmentation that I have a problem. A native mega-app that contains mini-apps
with different UX is not better than what we have today.

The web browser is even worse than native apps, as there's not even a minimal
set of guidelines that help unify the web experience.

~~~
Freak_NL
> We should work toward enabling people to live fully transparent lives.

Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some.

I live in a fairly tolerant society as far as Earth standards go, but some
things I will only share with a select few. Should my medical records be open
to anyone? My banking statements? My sexual preferences and fantasies? That's
absurd. It would ostracise a lot of people even in a nominally free society.
In some less enlightened jurisdictions some of these will get you executed or
lynched (ask any gay person in a Muslim country, or anyone critical of their
government in a repressive regime).

Yet I might want to chat about some topics with like minded individuals
(again, assume for the sake of argument that all of it is legal in my
jurisdiction) under a pseudonym or anonymity; the internet is a wonderful
place where this is possible — partly because I'm not doing everything through
one megacorp's 'app'. I'd like to keep it that way.

> […] as there's not even a minimal set of guidelines that help unify the web
> experience.

Good. Our culture thrives by diversity. Innovation stagnates without it.

We standardise where necessary for mutual benefit and cooperation (e.g., HTML,
CSS, and JavaScript; Unicode; or accessibility standards), and often we will
imitate or copy what works (e.g., the 'hamburger menu', or sensible
typography) but that doesn't mean every site or service or application should
look the same and connect to the same set of identity providers.

You present a very radical viewpoint, and I applaud you for your fervour, but
I suspect you are either very young, not a developer, or you haven't
experienced the downside of the monopolistic behaviour of the world's Apples,
Googles, and Microsofts yet.

~~~
miguelrochefort
> Undesirable for most, harmful for many, and lethal for some.

As I said, there is work to do before we can go fully transparent. It will
ultimately be harmful only to those who deserve it.

> Should my medical records be open to anyone? My banking statements? My
> sexual preferences and fantasies? That's absurd.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping
secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were communicated
publicly.

> In some less enlightened jurisdictions some of these will get you executed
> or lynched (ask any gay person in a Muslim country, or anyone critical of
> their government in a repressive regime).

That's a problem that will only get worse as privacy is maintained. Privacy
skews our perception of reality and makes people/government think that some
ideas/flaws/actions/crimes are rare when the reality is that most people are
able to conceal them. Those who get caught suffer from exaggerated punishment
that's only sustained through the ability of others to hide. The
democratization of privacy is not the solution to this problem.

> Yet I might want to chat about some topics with like minded individuals
> (again, assume for the sake of argument that all of it is legal in my
> jurisdiction) under a pseudonym or anonymity; the internet is a wonderful
> place where this is possible — partly because I'm not doing everything
> through one megacorp's 'app'. I'd like to keep it that way.

Anonymity is overrated. It's only good at restricting details that could
otherwise become a distraction, as a way to focus on content rather than form.
This can be achieved through other means that don't restrict access to
information or make a person believe their reputation is immune to bad
actions. Again, the only reason you want privacy and anonymity is because it's
the norm, not because it's best.

I have never implied that such an "app" would be owned by a mega corporation.
It will be fully open (again, transparent), free and distributed.

> We standardise where necessary for mutual benefit and cooperation (e.g.,
> HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; Unicode; or accessibility standards), and often
> we will imitate or copy what works (e.g., the 'hamburger menu', or sensible
> typography) but that doesn't mean every site or service or application
> should look the same and connect to the same set of identity providers.

These standards, while better than nothing, are mediocre at best. They're also
very low-level. I don't want my grandmother to program in HTML/CSS/JS.

> You present a very radical viewpoint, and I applaud you for your fervour,
> but I suspect you are either very young, not a developer, or you haven't
> experienced the downside of the monopolistic behaviour of the world's
> Apples, Googles, and Microsofts yet.

I'm 25. I'm a developer. I fully appreciate the limitations of
Google/Apple/Microsoft, hence my request to make something different.

~~~
Freak_NL
> Yes. Yes. Yes. Why do you assume that's absurd? Why do you insist on keeping
> secrets? The world would be a lot better if all those things were
> communicated publicly.

It is not absurd as a thought experiment, merely impossible to implement
without sacrificing one of the defining aspects of our (global) culture. I
won't rehash the many arguments fore and against the idea of total
transparency — I'll leave that to the science fiction writers and activists —
but the concept of privacy is so fundamental to our concept of _self_ that I
cannot imagine that people in a society without privacy would be happier.

Personal opinion aside, your view is so radical, that the adoption of a
technical solution such as the one you propose won't happen until the notion
of total transparency gains more adherents. To do so you would have to come up
with convincing answers to the (many!) arguments posited against the notion of
total transparency; often formulated as the _if you 've got nothing to hide
fallacy_ — which I believe applies here. We'll be very old or dead by the time
society has shifted that far from its current believe in privacy — then you
can start working on a technical solution (this may answer your initial
question).

------
k0dede
this month, I have developed and published a so-called 'mini app' in wechat.
It is more like instant app from android 2017 year with web technology, but
tencent restricted a lot of functions so you cannot use the standard web
technology and i believe it is for security reason and $$$. In my options, i
dont think it is an app revolution but it is more like a trending for this
industry, like facebook instant game or web app.

------
yalogin
What lo the status of user privacy and security in such apps? The user I am
guessing should have no such expectations.

~~~
dingdongding
Privacy and China don't play hand in hand.

~~~
eragoins
Does true Privacy play hand in hand with any country?

Since I don't live in China, should this bother me?

~~~
simonh
Imagine if a country manages to establish a surveillance state with a single
cabal in complete political, legal and economic control. Suppose that this
establishes a system using modern surveillance and censorship technologies
that is so complete in it's control of public and private life that the system
is in a permanent steady state.

There may be several possible steady states, one might be a pervasive
totalitarian surveillance state and another might be a liberal democracy with
individual freedoms and a system of checks and ballances. But while both such
systems exist in the world, it's possible that one or the other might
establish dominance over the other. In fact one or the other winning out seems
inevitable in the long term.

So as long as an oppressive totalitarian surveillance state exists in the
world, there is a risk that it will become the steady state for the whole
world. China has such a system. WhatsApp is thoroughly subverted by the
Chinese government and is an integral part of their surveillance and
censorship apparatus. It might even become the key component that enables
complete and permanent stability for the Chinese totalitarian system.

------
Inconel
I may be out of the loop on the newest app developments so please correct me
if I'm wrong, but why haven't we seen these kind of all encompassing chat apps
take off in the US/West?

Has no one tried it yet or are Western users somehow hostile to these kind of
apps?

~~~
vidyesh
>Has no one tried it yet or are Western users somehow hostile to these kind of
apps?

WeChat is majorly filled with bot accounts which do most of the stuff. And the
webpages/requests are loaded to either fill the message box or load a webpage
within the app to conclude the request.

As most of it is kind of local (banks, home security, grocery, etc) the bots
are mostly locally available and so they haven't really flourished or even
made for outside China.

A really better article to understand what WeChat provides was on the VC
Andreessen Horowitz blog[1].

People seem to be very much hating how hostile it looks and feel but China's
internet is a walled garden, WeChat falls perfectly inside the firewall to
provide everything within the app. And that is the reason why such chat app
won't work anywhere is because the world. We have access to internet and its
apps completely, we have the power to choose whichever app we like unlike for
China's user base which has been living with the habit to only look for apps
and services which the government approves.

The article really is trying to convey that how WeChat has become the onestop
for everything in China, which gives them that much reason to launch a OS
around WeChat and not care about the other App Stores.

[1] [https://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-
first/](https://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-first/)

------
dano
Isn't it that WeChat is a trusted platform for apps whereas the preponderance
of other places one can download apps are sketchy and usually deliver malware?
Basically a monopoly central platform it would seem.

------
travisckirk
While the technological innovation here might not seem impressive, WeChat is
extremely influential. I was just in China, and at least in the cities it
seems like everyone uses WeChat for everything, all the time.

------
TeeWEE
What they are describing here, is called a WEBBROWSER. Every phone has one.

------
james_niro
WeChat is on to something...it is like in the lord of the rings one ring to
rule them all. One app to rule them all.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a phone from them in near future

------
jordache
How is this even a novel concept? Oh it's Bloomberg...

------
deftturtle
tl;dr: If the design philosophies for Alexa, IFTTT, Siri, and Google all came
together in one beautiful, open platform, I would be so happy. I hate apps so
much, and voice assistants offer amazing convenience and better interaction. I
don't need the extra fluff with a huge app.

Once Apple opens Siri to a greater extent, we'll have even more flexibility &
power. I could delete so many apps if Siri could handle the few, basic
functions that I actually need. Currently, SiriKit is limited to particular
domains, like messaging, payments, or reservations, so it's not capable of a
whole lot [1]. The Alexa Skills Kit [2] is ahead of Siri at this point, only
because it's more open to developers.

One day, this is what Siri will do:

Siri takes a photo of my checks, handles my banking logins, and submits the
photos for deposit processing. I delete my banking app.

Siri records my voice, sends it to Google Translate, and returns the
appropriate translation. Then I delete Google Translate.

With the IntentsUI Framework, apps could include a visual experience, too.
There's plenty of room for growth and customization.

Siri even lets you activate Google Now, Alexa, or a different voice assistant
that is more intelligent. Sorry Siri, but you just aren't as good :(

Siri would handle security and API stuff. It would store my logins and account
information, and then it would appropriately handle my Intents. I could
download particular functions and increase the capabilities of Siri, like how
iMessages has its own App Store.

One selling point with Firefox OS was the Adaptive App Search, where relevant
apps would be available as you needed them. Searching for coffee? A Starbucks
web app would appear, and you could use it on the fly, similar to the
Progressive Web Apps with Android. In either case, the purpose was to limit
installed software and prioritize what was actually needed at the time [3].

But Siri, or Alexa, or any voice assistant will push this further when all of
the APIs Just Work™. I don't know how soon this day will come, but I could
delete so many apps if Siri could process my data and communicate with 3rd
parties.

[1] SiriKit:
[https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/](https://developer.apple.com/sirikit/)

[2] Alexa Skills Kit: [https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-
kit](https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit)

[3] Firefox Adaptive App Search:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zwf0VMVDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9zwf0VMVDI)

------
eva1984
TL;DR, the mini program is basically WeChat's own chrome web store, web app
with proprietary API to interact with WeChat.

Didn't know why this is hyped so much, and there is nothing revolutionary
about this. It makes the Chinese internet even more becoming WeChat's own
walled garden.

~~~
lhr0909
If you think about similar products on the market (fb messenger, WhatsApp,
even Line or Kakao Talk in Japan/Korea), this is quite unheard of, because
WeChat is taking up everyone's time on the phone. Other apps just simply
cannot divide a user's attention out of WeChat the app, on a smartphone.

And just because of that, most of the businesses and companies start to live
off of wechat's user base and features. For example, there are subscription
accounts where you get subscribed articles regularly so you don't need to
build a news app anymore for content, and individual content producers can
also publish just as easily, so the spiral gets deeper and deeper into the
wechat system. And when payment started to come around on WeChat in 2014
(iirc), even Alipay is taking a hit, because now you literally can just keep
WeChat open on your phone.

I think that, if you build an IM product and suddenly become the only app
people ever use, this is just amazing.

~~~
felixding
> because WeChat is taking up everyone's time on the phone

Well, not me. I'm Chinese and I hate hate hate WeChat. It's a cluttered,
privacy intrusive app and a very close eco system.

WeChat became this popular is by no means because of the app per se, but
because of it is made and heavily promoted by Tencent.

Before WeChat we had much more elegant and simple apps like Talkbox and
WhatsApp.

