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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

by Inconel 10y ago

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?

HappyTypist 10y ago
It's kind of the iMessages App Store.
Markoff 10y ago
Facebook messenger had built in apps it's mostly because WeChat has gov protected monopoly over China, while Western chat apps operate in fragmented environment so it's really difficult to convince user to switch to them for payment if half of your contacts can't receive your payment and same goes for other functionality and building this features require critical mass of users which is just not possible in open market (well it's not possible on Android since Google seem to be suicidal regarding chat, is perfectly possible with iMessage)
vidyesh 10y ago
>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/

by Inconel 10y ago

HappyTypist 10y ago

It's kind of the iMessages App Store.

Markoff 10y ago

Facebook messenger had built in apps it's mostly because WeChat has gov protected monopoly over China, while Western chat apps operate in fragmented environment so it's really difficult to convince user to switch to them for payment if half of your contacts can't receive your payment and same goes for other functionality and building this features require critical mass of users which is just not possible in open market (well it's not possible on Android since Google seem to be suicidal regarding chat, is perfectly possible with iMessage)

vidyesh 10y ago

>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/