5 ms·

anecdotal, but visiting china and seeing the level of integration and support wechat (just one app) has in everyday life is way past the paltry "ooh look you ca

anecdotal, but visiting china and seeing the level of integration and support wechat (just one app) has in everyday life is way past the paltry "ooh look you can use apple pay in this store now" we have.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
True, but the US has ubiquitous credit card usage while China never really had that (most corner shops/veggie stands lack unionpay POS terminals). Wechat pay feature has done great at solving China's problems, but it isn't likely to catch on in developed countries without those problems, while it is failing to move into markets in adjacent countries or Africa that do. When I visited Australia (while still living in Beijing) last year, I was amazed that people could just tap their cards at convenience stores to pay for whatever. It was like I went to the future where you didn't have to hold your phone screen clumsily up to a scanner.
- arcticbull 10y ago
  The US banks actually issued these for a few years (called dual-interface cards) though with the less-secure MSD technology instead of EMV. The the poor rate of adoption and high cost per-card, they eventually backed down and issued chip-only cards. These get replaced every few years and now that terminals exist in the US, I wouldn't be surprised to see dual-interface EMV cards issued by most major issuers within the next few years.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Let's hope so, I'd love to have what Australia has. And no, I don't miss payments via QR codes at all.
- dasil003 10y ago
  Is a phone that much more clumsy than a card? Personally, my phone comes out much faster than a card.
  - shrewduser 10y ago
    well as long as you don't have a bunch of them in your wallet you needent even pull out the individual card. i just tap my wallet.
majormajor 10y ago
I think infrastructure level has a lot more to do with timing than fundamental tech competitiveness or societal capabilities. China's jumping on app integration because this is the starting point for them. Question is, does everything keep getting updated, or does this just become the new legacy system that they deal with for a few decades? Japan jumped hard on vending machines and such a few decades ago, but now a cash-only ticket-dispensing vending machine in a ramen place feels pretty outdated. Felt like places were leapfrogging standalone magnetic or chip-based credit card processing straight to contactless systems. Are these super important distinctions, though? Is some sort of cashless payment system "good enough" for most purposes regardless of implementation details around the specific tech - and similarly, does one app to rule them all enable a lot of useful stuff going forward vs a big pool of apps?
libraryatnight 10y ago
Reading about WeChat blew my mind a bit, I found the article: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21703428-chinas-wechat-shows-way-social-medias-future-wechats-world http://www.economist.com/news/business/21703428-chinas-wecha...
serge2k 10y ago
It's monolithic vs many apps. Facebook tried to copy Snapchat and failed because people would just rather use Snapchat. I'd bail on whatsapp if it got more integrated into Facebook. It's a cultural issue, not some amazing chinese innovations that we out west are just blind to.
inimino 10y ago
This is true, but it's also true that there aren't as many apps competing with Wechat in different niches in China. Wechat won, the way Facebook won in America, but moreso. Imagine if Snapchat, Facebook, and something like Apple Pay or PayPal were all a single company.
- rxin 10y ago
  There were tons of competition for wechat, but wechat crushed them due to a combination of superior product and stronger platform (with QQ to start with). As a matter of fact, usually startups in China (or large companies pushing for a new product) execute very aggressively, due to the sheer number of competitions doing almost identical things. A few years ago there were 5000+ Groupon-like startups, and that was a strong filter for the companies with a strong execution force.
  - inimino 10y ago
    Yes. To clarify, I'm not saying there wasn't competition. Rather that the functionality covered by the winner is just much greater.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago

True, but the US has ubiquitous credit card usage while China never really had that (most corner shops/veggie stands lack unionpay POS terminals). Wechat pay feature has done great at solving China's problems, but it isn't likely to catch on in developed countries without those problems, while it is failing to move into markets in adjacent countries or Africa that do. When I visited Australia (while still living in Beijing) last year, I was amazed that people could just tap their cards at convenience stores to pay for whatever. It was like I went to the future where you didn't have to hold your phone screen clumsily up to a scanner.

arcticbull 10y ago
The US banks actually issued these for a few years (called dual-interface cards) though with the less-secure MSD technology instead of EMV. The the poor rate of adoption and high cost per-card, they eventually backed down and issued chip-only cards. These get replaced every few years and now that terminals exist in the US, I wouldn't be surprised to see dual-interface EMV cards issued by most major issuers within the next few years.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  Let's hope so, I'd love to have what Australia has. And no, I don't miss payments via QR codes at all.
dasil003 10y ago
Is a phone that much more clumsy than a card? Personally, my phone comes out much faster than a card.
- shrewduser 10y ago
  well as long as you don't have a bunch of them in your wallet you needent even pull out the individual card. i just tap my wallet.

majormajor 10y ago

I think infrastructure level has a lot more to do with timing than fundamental tech competitiveness or societal capabilities. China's jumping on app integration because this is the starting point for them. Question is, does everything keep getting updated, or does this just become the new legacy system that they deal with for a few decades? Japan jumped hard on vending machines and such a few decades ago, but now a cash-only ticket-dispensing vending machine in a ramen place feels pretty outdated. Felt like places were leapfrogging standalone magnetic or chip-based credit card processing straight to contactless systems. Are these super important distinctions, though? Is some sort of cashless payment system "good enough" for most purposes regardless of implementation details around the specific tech - and similarly, does one app to rule them all enable a lot of useful stuff going forward vs a big pool of apps?

libraryatnight 10y ago

Reading about WeChat blew my mind a bit, I found the article: http://www.economist.com/news/business/21703428-chinas-wechat-shows-way-social-medias-future-wechats-world http://www.economist.com/news/business/21703428-chinas-wecha...

serge2k 10y ago

It's monolithic vs many apps. Facebook tried to copy Snapchat and failed because people would just rather use Snapchat. I'd bail on whatsapp if it got more integrated into Facebook. It's a cultural issue, not some amazing chinese innovations that we out west are just blind to.

inimino 10y ago

This is true, but it's also true that there aren't as many apps competing with Wechat in different niches in China. Wechat won, the way Facebook won in America, but moreso. Imagine if Snapchat, Facebook, and something like Apple Pay or PayPal were all a single company.

rxin 10y ago
There were tons of competition for wechat, but wechat crushed them due to a combination of superior product and stronger platform (with QQ to start with). As a matter of fact, usually startups in China (or large companies pushing for a new product) execute very aggressively, due to the sheer number of competitions doing almost identical things. A few years ago there were 5000+ Groupon-like startups, and that was a strong filter for the companies with a strong execution force.
- inimino 10y ago
  Yes. To clarify, I'm not saying there wasn't competition. Rather that the functionality covered by the winner is just much greater.