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I grew up in China, and I'm now living in the bay area. I just went back for a month for vacation. I too saw a more living mobile ecosystem. and wechat is inde

I grew up in China, and I'm now living in the bay area. I just went back for a month for vacation. I too saw a more living mobile ecosystem. and wechat is indeed in the center of this system. For example, a fruit stand would now accept mobile payment via wechat. those who run fruit stands are usually farmers. I think it makes a lot of sense to build mobile payment into a a social app. because any currency would require a social network. and transferring money is a key social activity. building independent mobile payment without the support from a mature social network is a bad idea, for example square and apple pay (only useable in the apple ecosystem, a partial mobile ecosystem). China never seemed to have a credit card era, it jumped directly from paying cash to paying with mobile. whereas in the U.S., credit card is so convenient, people don't want to change. for many years, wechat has been combining new features with its social network, whereas whatsapp wanted to be a pure chatting app and missed many opportunities. you can use wechat to order food at restaurants, you can log into public wifi with wechat .... This is just one example. Another thing I noticed is online shopping. At the gate of our apartment, each day, there are many deliver guys on tricycles. They have a more efficient and cheap delivering system. For example, in the yard of our apartment we have storage cabinets with password locks. The deliver guys won't deliver each package to your door, as it is inefficient, especially because apartment buildings are tall in China, you have to take elevator. Instead, they put packages into one of the cabinet doors. And you will receive a password on your phone. Put the code in, the cabinet door will open. you can then get the package. This is not a complex idea, but hard to implement in the U.S., because we don't have the same population density here. When you build an infrastructure like this, you want to serve as many people as possible.

stephenitis 10y ago
luxer one and amazon lockers do the same. For example, in the yard of our apartment we have storage cabinets with password locks. The deliver guys won't deliver each package to your door, as it is inefficient, especially because apartment buildings are tall in China, you have to take elevator. Instead, they put packages into one of the cabinet doors. And you will receive a password on your phone. Put the code in, the cabinet door will open. you can then get the package.
- billconan 10y ago
  but somehow I never saw them in Bay area ...
  - et-al 10y ago
    7-11s from SF to Palo Alto have Amazon Lockers. It's a great idea, but someone needs to pony up the space.
  - linkregister 10y ago
    There are only nine Amazon lockers in San Francisco. And five more in the immediate East Bay. It would be pretty easy to miss them. https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/account/address/view.html https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/account/address/view.html
    - billconan 10y ago
      If I have to drive for miles to reach the locker, then I'd rather have my packages delivered to my door. That's why I thought China can implement this idea better, because by a walking distance, you can reach thousands of people. But in the U.S., it may be a good idea to locate the lockers in grocery stores. Picking packages while doing groceries is also convenient.
      - et-al 10y ago
        Assuming people don't have their groceries delivered as well. ;)
- fraserharris 10y ago
  BufferBox (YC, acq Google) too...
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  And they did it way before... But China invented the fruit lockers: you want fresh fruit, it gets delivered to a locker in your apartment everyday. I haven't tried it, but was a bit floored when I saw one. We personally just have them leave packages at the wuye (apartment management), any high end apartment just has a counter that will keep your package for you, no need for a locker solution.
billconan 10y ago
guess I should also write the other side of the story -- things I don't like about China. Overall, I feel that China is like the U.S. in its early days (1920s). Or the 1999 Silicon Valley There are a lot of opportunities, but less rules. It's a jungle basically. For people with tech depth and want to build something steadily, China is not the best place. a high percentage of young entrepreneurs there are just opportunists. They are not interested in sitting down and building something useful. Instead, they just want to quickly raise/burn money and go public. There are way more theranos' there in China. And you need to have connections to success in China. This is a historical and cultural thing. I don't know how many of you noticed the recent news of didi acquiring uber China. The leaders of the two companies are actually from the same family. One is the daughter of the Lenovo CEO. The other is the niece of him. Probably coincidence，but you see coincidences more often in China. My attitude towards China is that I take it seriously. I admit what it does better. But I don't think I'm strong enough to fight in the jungle.
- eric-hu 10y ago
  I would like to see more of this kind of "Here's how I see it in the positive and negative" discussion on HN. Kudos for sharing the opposing sides of your own opinion.
- Asetsuna 10y ago
  To be fair, you can get success more easily in US if you have connections which is the same as China. Maybe Bill Gate and his mother's background is a similar example to what you referred about DiDi.
  - xiaoma 10y ago
    Don't be ridiculous. If it were actually the same, then Bill Gates could have used his influence to get Netscape's site blocked from the internet or depending on the depth of his connections with Bill Clinton at the time, get Marc Andreessen thrown in prison. For those who do manage to become billionaires, the game often becomes even rougher: http://www.forbes.com/sites/raykwong/2011/07/25/friends-dont-let-friends-become-chinese-billionaires/#749f921d11fd http://www.forbes.com/sites/raykwong/2011/07/25/friends-dont...
kalleboo 10y ago
> For example, in the yard of our apartment we have storage cabinets with password locks We've had these in Japan for decades, but less high-tech - it's just a manual code lock and the delivery man writes the code down on a delivery slip and sticks in your mailbox.
auganov 10y ago
To illustrate the level of wechat craze: even VCs will often add you on wechat rather than exchange emails. I've seen group chats of founders and VCs coming up with ideas and arranging funding all within wechat. It seems like people don't compartmentalize professional and private communications as much as Westerners do. I bet facebook is thinking hard how to merge Messenger and Whatsapp without getting people angry.
- zhte415 10y ago
  > I bet facebook is thinking hard how to merge Messenger and Whatsapp without getting people angry. Indeed. Simultaneous communication between WeChat circle, QQ group, the odd email CC'd to people in and out of the conversation. 'Keep the momentum'. Should anyone get confused, send them a screenshot from your phone of the other conversation. It is very fluid. Show you're communicating and getting things done. For transactions, pay via WeChat, or pay via AliPay, doesn't matter, works anywhere. No need to integrate anything; users will do it themselves if they see a compelling need.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>for many years, wechat has been combining new features with its social network, whereas whatsapp wanted to be a pure chatting app and missed many opportunities. Nah, WhatsApp was just crippled by its origins. It was started independently from a major social-network, and in a country whose currency and payments infrastructure wasn't going to scale outside the original borders very well.

stephenitis 10y ago

luxer one and amazon lockers do the same. For example, in the yard of our apartment we have storage cabinets with password locks. The deliver guys won't deliver each package to your door, as it is inefficient, especially because apartment buildings are tall in China, you have to take elevator. Instead, they put packages into one of the cabinet doors. And you will receive a password on your phone. Put the code in, the cabinet door will open. you can then get the package.

billconan 10y ago
but somehow I never saw them in Bay area ...
- et-al 10y ago
  7-11s from SF to Palo Alto have Amazon Lockers. It's a great idea, but someone needs to pony up the space.
- linkregister 10y ago
  There are only nine Amazon lockers in San Francisco. And five more in the immediate East Bay. It would be pretty easy to miss them. https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/account/address/view.html https://www.amazon.com/gp/css/account/address/view.html
  - billconan 10y ago
    If I have to drive for miles to reach the locker, then I'd rather have my packages delivered to my door. That's why I thought China can implement this idea better, because by a walking distance, you can reach thousands of people. But in the U.S., it may be a good idea to locate the lockers in grocery stores. Picking packages while doing groceries is also convenient.
    - et-al 10y ago
      Assuming people don't have their groceries delivered as well. ;)
fraserharris 10y ago
BufferBox (YC, acq Google) too...
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
And they did it way before... But China invented the fruit lockers: you want fresh fruit, it gets delivered to a locker in your apartment everyday. I haven't tried it, but was a bit floored when I saw one. We personally just have them leave packages at the wuye (apartment management), any high end apartment just has a counter that will keep your package for you, no need for a locker solution.

billconan 10y ago

guess I should also write the other side of the story -- things I don't like about China. Overall, I feel that China is like the U.S. in its early days (1920s). Or the 1999 Silicon Valley There are a lot of opportunities, but less rules. It's a jungle basically. For people with tech depth and want to build something steadily, China is not the best place. a high percentage of young entrepreneurs there are just opportunists. They are not interested in sitting down and building something useful. Instead, they just want to quickly raise/burn money and go public. There are way more theranos' there in China. And you need to have connections to success in China. This is a historical and cultural thing. I don't know how many of you noticed the recent news of didi acquiring uber China. The leaders of the two companies are actually from the same family. One is the daughter of the Lenovo CEO. The other is the niece of him. Probably coincidence，but you see coincidences more often in China. My attitude towards China is that I take it seriously. I admit what it does better. But I don't think I'm strong enough to fight in the jungle.

eric-hu 10y ago
I would like to see more of this kind of "Here's how I see it in the positive and negative" discussion on HN. Kudos for sharing the opposing sides of your own opinion.
Asetsuna 10y ago
To be fair, you can get success more easily in US if you have connections which is the same as China. Maybe Bill Gate and his mother's background is a similar example to what you referred about DiDi.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  Don't be ridiculous. If it were actually the same, then Bill Gates could have used his influence to get Netscape's site blocked from the internet or depending on the depth of his connections with Bill Clinton at the time, get Marc Andreessen thrown in prison. For those who do manage to become billionaires, the game often becomes even rougher: http://www.forbes.com/sites/raykwong/2011/07/25/friends-dont-let-friends-become-chinese-billionaires/#749f921d11fd http://www.forbes.com/sites/raykwong/2011/07/25/friends-dont...

kalleboo 10y ago

> For example, in the yard of our apartment we have storage cabinets with password locks We've had these in Japan for decades, but less high-tech - it's just a manual code lock and the delivery man writes the code down on a delivery slip and sticks in your mailbox.

auganov 10y ago

To illustrate the level of wechat craze: even VCs will often add you on wechat rather than exchange emails. I've seen group chats of founders and VCs coming up with ideas and arranging funding all within wechat. It seems like people don't compartmentalize professional and private communications as much as Westerners do. I bet facebook is thinking hard how to merge Messenger and Whatsapp without getting people angry.

zhte415 10y ago
> I bet facebook is thinking hard how to merge Messenger and Whatsapp without getting people angry. Indeed. Simultaneous communication between WeChat circle, QQ group, the odd email CC'd to people in and out of the conversation. 'Keep the momentum'. Should anyone get confused, send them a screenshot from your phone of the other conversation. It is very fluid. Show you're communicating and getting things done. For transactions, pay via WeChat, or pay via AliPay, doesn't matter, works anywhere. No need to integrate anything; users will do it themselves if they see a compelling need.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>for many years, wechat has been combining new features with its social network, whereas whatsapp wanted to be a pure chatting app and missed many opportunities. Nah, WhatsApp was just crippled by its origins. It was started independently from a major social-network, and in a country whose currency and payments infrastructure wasn't going to scale outside the original borders very well.