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To Cover China, There’s No Substitute for WeChat

150 points by annefauvre 8y ago

jandrese 8y ago
The combination of Wechat and making it effectively the only option through the Great Firewall is an amazing tool for shutting out foreign voices from Chinese social media. The apparent policy on connecting to Wechat from outside the mainland is "don't". It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, but the others routinely have their service degraded by the government so they aren't a viable option. Personally, it think in the long term this sort of compartmentalization is harmful, it too often facilitates groupthink and missing valuable input from people with a different perspective. It's damaging to a society and is going to have repercussions.
- taurath 8y ago
  > It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist There’s a lot more stick than carrot from the government to connecting outside, so a lot of people are just avoiding concequences rather than doing what they want. OTOH, we complain about the same problems in our “free/open” internet as well.
- mistermann 8y ago
  > The combination of Wechat and making it effectively the only option through the Great Firewall is an amazing tool for shutting out foreign voices from Chinese social media. That plus the language barrier also makes it a convenient way for WeChat users who immigrate to other countries to avoid integrating into overall society as well as discussing controversial matters like tax minimization strategies. I'd like to think my government has considered the latter and is doing something about it but I'm not too hopeful.
- porpoisely 8y ago
  Not just foreign voices. Domestic chinese voices as well. As technology/money becomes intertwined, it's scary how easily large tech companies can silence and ruin people's lives. Even worse, just the threat of these companies can silence voices. As china and the rest of the world move away from cash to digital payment, can anyone really risk offending wechat or any other tech/payment service? Unfortunately, we are having similar problems here as well as our large tech/finance companies (social media, registrars, paypal, patreon, stripe, mastercard, etc ) are being used to silence voices and intimidate people. Even more worrisome is the effect that money and investment from our largest foreign investors china, saudi arabia, israel, etc will have going forward. Will tech censor even more to appease large foreign investors? We know how foreign money and investment affects everything from hollywood to news coverage to politics. Can tech be immune from that?
  - jandrese 8y ago
    It should be noted that the digital payment system China is moving to is Wechat. If you try to go to the mainland and use cash outside of tourist areas you quickly run into trouble. Even for things that most people assume are cash run, like Taxis.
- rchaud 8y ago
  > It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, Network effects. Look into any thread here about people quitting FB. You'll see several valid use cases showing why people stay on the platform despite its serious flaws.
  - ngokevin 8y ago
    Wechat is pretty good if you're in China. You can use it to do everything (payments, taxi, tickets, transfer, calls, games) versus having tons of miscellaneous poor apps. Every store and even panhandlers accept Wechat. I'm in the middle of SF and every place is still on cash only or no mobile payments such that it's unreasonable to depend on mobile payments.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I just came back from visiting SF and didn’t have to use cash at all; I had food, drink, I went to the grocery store....even Caltrain took credit cards (but it did 12 years ago). What did I do wrong? Living in Seattle, I haven’t been to an ATM in 6 months. The last time I had to use cash was ironically in Boston China town (a cheap Banh Mi place wouldn’t take credit cards).
      - estro 8y ago
        Quite a few bars, and restaurants in the Mission, are cash-only.
        cal5k 8y ago
        This has nothing to do with lack of technology adoption and everything to do with avoiding taxes.
        paulie_a 8y ago
        And transaction fees
- iOsiris 8y ago
  > It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, but the others routinely have their service degraded by the government so they aren't a viable option. Do those other options actually exist within China? I thought they were blocked and that's why WeChat is dominate.
  - jandrese 8y ago
    I remember at least one of the popular third party chat apps like Signal or Telegram made a big push to squeeze past the Great Firewall by hosting on AWS and being judicious with their traffic patterns. IIRC they even manged to get AWS shut out of China at times.
    - tivert 8y ago
      > I remember at least one of the popular third party chat apps like Signal or Telegram made a big push to squeeze past the Great Firewall by hosting on AWS and being judicious with their traffic patterns. IIRC they even manged to get AWS shut out of China at times. I think you're talking about domain fronting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_fronting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_fronting). IIRC, Google, Amazon, and MS all blocked it because they were afraid of getting blocked. Though I also vaguely recall that Russia was blocking big blocks of AWS IPs for a time to try to stamp out Telegram. I was in China recently, and Signal actually seemed to work on a local wifi network (with cellular data disabled), so maybe they've got some new circumvention technology in place. I didn't thoroughly try to test it since 99% of the time I just used data roaming on a foreign carrier to avoid the firewall.
  - resouer 8y ago
    The latest competitor WeChat kicked to ass is MSN China, guess it is blocked or not :-)
- keyboardnerd 8y ago
  > It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist people use it because: 1. If the conversation is not about criticizing gov in group chat or "moment" timeline, it's ok. Group chat/Timeline are not treated as public space, and talking bad in public is prohibited. 2. friends/family are on it and professional network is also on it. 3. store member cards are on it, you can order food and checkout in restaurants or online on it, you can send/receive money on it; using third party integrated services, you can book hotel, train, flight, pay utilities; you can even play games using the internal "tiny apps". It brings so much good things, while you just need to keep silent about specific things. Privacy is still a relatively new concept to China, and the true freedom of speech is just so distant that the upper level doesn't seem to like it and you can't really oppose such overwhelming power. So why don't they just relax and use it.
- 1ris 8y ago
  >It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist I have neither a WeChat or Facebook account. I just don't see any real usecase for me and never missed it. But people are using it because it is usefull for them, even thou i can't see why people arent just using the alternatives that arent a murdochesque cancer in democracy. People just dont care about the poltical implications of the technology they are using. People often just want it to work, because usually it doesn't. And WeChat is really good software. Its better than almost everything i have ever seen before. From my insight it is completely out of league for facebook. WeChat compares to facebook like Genera to CP/M. A glimpse at it gave that "the future is right now feeling" like nothing within the last 10 years.
gok 8y ago
Where by "the world" we of course mean "mainland China" Edit: the title has been changed; it used to read "WeChat is taking over the world" or something
- rakoo 8y ago
  As someone not from the US, I can assure you the same mindset does appear on American websites about the US.
  - DeonPenny 8y ago
    I thought american tech companies were used in most places outside of the US. From what seen facebook, google, amazon, etc are fairly global reaching at this point.
    - adventured 8y ago
      The globalized US tech companies / services / products. YouTube, Netflix, Wikipedia, Uber, Google search, iOS & iPhone / watch / iPad, Mac, Android, Windows, Microsoft Office/365, Facebook core, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Gmail & G services, Google Maps, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail / Outlook.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Imgur, Twitter, LinkedIn, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Adobe / Photoshop, iTunes / Apple Music, Wordpress, Github, Stack Exchange, Steam, Airbnb, Priceline / Booking, Amazon.com, eBay, PayPal, AWS, Oracle, Salesforce, Akamai, Cloudflare, VMWare, Lets Encrypt, GoDaddy, Craigslist, Symantec, Red Hat, Activision, Electronic Arts, Autodesk, IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Cisco, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Dell / EMC, HP, Western Digital, Lam Research, Applied Materials, Micron, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices There are a bunch more that one could argue for, however that covers the bulk of them.
    - Markoff 8y ago
      Reddit it's pretty much unknown in Europe I'd you check statistics Amazon it's also the last option i would be looking at when shopping for something online in Europe
      - 8y ago
justicezyx 8y ago
Kind of funny. WeChat is more taking over the world before ByteDance's phenomenal growth in the past 2 years. Now to say it's taking the world appears to show that the author has no idea what's happening in China...
- hero76 8y ago
  right they just released a clone of snapchat. Android client looks like a decompilation of snapchat app
  - yorwba 8y ago
    According to Wikipedia, WeChat was first released in January 2011, while Snapchat only came out in September 2011. I conclude that Snapchat is more likely to be a clone of WeChat than the other way around. Edit: To be clear, while I haven't used Snapchat, based on what I've heard about it I'd say that the two apps are nothing alike except for having some kind of chat functionality.
    - napoleond 8y ago
      Parent was not talking about WeChat: https://technode.com/2019/01/18/bytedances-snapchat-clone-isnt-wechat-killer-but-tencent-should-worry/ https://technode.com/2019/01/18/bytedances-snapchat-clone-is...
      - yorwba 8y ago
        Thanks for the clarification. I read the "just" as "only" instead of "this week" and also thought it referred to WeChat instead of Bytedance's new Duoshan, which I totally hadn't heard of before.
smaili 8y ago
> the messaging app that’s the equivalent of WhatsApp plus Facebook plus PayPal plus Uber plus GrubHub plus many other things. It's unfortunate not much of their architecture is publicly shared or discussed. With their massive amount of users and incredibly diverse service offerings I'd love to see their backend architecture design choices/tradeoffs.
- azurezyq 8y ago
  Actually they shared a lot but vast majority of them in Chinese.
  - faitswulff 8y ago
    Turnabout for an industry dominated by English.
  - yorwba 8y ago
    Could you link to some Chinese-language resources they published?
    - azurezyq 8y ago
      Just did a brief search and found a few links: https://www.infoq.cn/article/the-road-of-the-growth-weixin-background https://www.infoq.cn/article/the-road-of-the-growth-weixin-b... https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1005631 https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1005631 There seems more on cloud.tencent.com/developer. And you can check their presentations on major per-field conferences like AI or big data or something.
- hero76 8y ago
  here is an article in english of wechats architecture https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/11/16/overload-control-for-scaling-wechat-microservices/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/11/16/overload-control-for-sca...
- justicezyx 8y ago
  Well, if you used the app, you'll see that these components are largely independent. IMHO, architecture wise, they are not particularly interesting.
dwighttk 8y ago
Article title is currently the slightly less hyperbolic: "To Cover China, There’s No Substitute for WeChat"
- sctb 8y ago
  Yes, thanks! We've updated the headline from “WeChat taking over the world”.
wufufufu 8y ago
The WeChat MacOS client requires some ridiculous QR code dance to login every time I open it. That alone prevents me from using it over iMessage / FB messenger when communicating with my family. The only time I use WeChat is if family members are in China where I assume they have banned FB messenger and iMessage.
- enedil 8y ago
  Afaik iMessage isn't banned.
  - chairmanwow 8y ago
    This is because Apple gave the party the keys to the kingdom.
- throwaway3023 8y ago
  I also find it a hassle. I wonder if they do it because they think it's better security? That a user will always have their cell phone, and logging in on a computer is more rare?
  - htfy96 8y ago
    It's for app-lockin. Most people will not uninstall an app after installation. Moreover many new Internet users in China cannot even remember a password that's secure enough.
- toephu2 8y ago
  That's basically 2-factor authentication. It's more secure than entering a password. WeChat was also built as a mobile-first app, the desktop experience was an afterthought.
  - Zarel 8y ago
    2-factor authentication generally keeps you logged in, instead of forcing you to re-do the authentication every day.
deleted 8y ago
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kweks 8y ago
If you're a foreigner, getting a functioning WeChat account is near to impossible these days. Validating a foreign account involves sponsorship from a local account. Local accounts can only sponsor one user every three months. This is a policy that has been getting steadily more and more restrictive. I have partners who simply give westerners a telephone with a new account + Sim loaded and bound to a local to avoid hassles. Life in China today without WeChat is a bit like life in the USA today but communicating only by postal mail and paying for things with traveller's cheques. It's possible, but it's not a world you want to live in. If WeChat is taking over the world.. it's a world without foreigners.
- holoduke 8y ago
  I just created an account (in Europe) on an android device. Is that any different from yours story?
  - TulliusCicero 8y ago
    I think that's a different type of WeChat account that doesn't require validation.
  - kweks 8y ago
    You may find within X days (one week to three weeks) your account will be locked, with the only means available to unblock by jumping through the hoops above. I watched three locals take literally one hour yesterday to validate one account for an EU foreigner, and my other EU partners have had experiences similar to yours: works for a few days then locks. If it works for you.. feel lucky.
    - jacob_rezi 8y ago
      I've had this ongoing experience for the past two weeks after coming back from a business trip in Shanghai & BJ. Luckily I made a few contacts who were able to help out. https://i.imgur.com/37VqCZa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/37VqCZa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XRJuQjj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XRJuQjj.jpg
nathan_long 8y ago
I had to install WeChat once on my phone for business reasons. From what I read of the Chinese government's control over it, I felt nervous that my phone was compromised by installing it. You could say that Facebook is just as bad, but 1) I don't install Facebook and 2) I still trust the US Government more than the Chinese one.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  I trust neither really, but I feel my data would be more useful to the US one.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  I'm not sure if this is still the case but Google used to not even allow employees to bring their laptops to China. If a Googler had to go to China they would be issued a special laptop just for that trip. I have no idea what IT had to do to that laptop after the trip to make sure it was clean. If I were going to China on business I'd have a separate cell phone just for that purpose. You can just swap sim cards if you need to keep the same number. Smartphones are so cheap nowadays you might as well have a burner for that purpose.
  - tivert 8y ago
    > If I were going to China on business I'd have a separate cell phone just for that purpose. You can just swap sim cards if you need to keep the same number. Smartphones are so cheap nowadays you might as well have a burner for that purpose. A SIM card is an independent computer that runs a stripped-down version of Java. According to this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17083221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17083221), the cell network can even upload programs to it to run.
    - free652 8y ago
      Sim isn't a computer, it's just a secure data store. SIM cards predate java afaik.
debt 8y ago
Does anyone here have a business presence on WeChat? If so, what has your experience been like?
- jacob_rezi 8y ago
  Two of our Chinese partners conduct their entire business through a collection of groups all related to careers. Since we are a foreign firm located in South Korea - they sell our services to their users on our behalf. Amazing how an entire company can be ran solely on wechat
  - lancewiggs 8y ago
    That is how a premier western brand hotel we stayed at gets things done here in China.
  - dingaling 8y ago
    That's terrifying. The IT section of their business continuity plan must be empty beyond "don't get kicked off WeChat"
throw7 8y ago
Reminds me of some earlier article about a chinese daughter who pursued a "solitary life". With few chinese "social connections" it was tough for her to get things done for her aging father? mother?. That would seem to make for a strong driver for "digital connections" ala wechat. Hate to break it to the author though: western companies aren't going to be the ones doing the digital liberation. It's not like that's what their doing here anyway.
- Invictus0 8y ago
  I believe it was this NYT article about guanxi: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/international-world/the-bitter-regrets-of-a-useless-chinese-daughter.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/international-wor...
  - throwaway3023 8y ago
    Guanxi sounds like the "Old boy network." And "Chabuduo" sounds similar to "Fail fast, fail often."
    - gvhst 8y ago
      I'd like to respectfully provide some contrasting ideas regarding these two points. 1. Guanxi is related to one's network or clout, but there are several distinct differences between the chinese concept of Guanxi and the western notion of "old boy's network." Primarily, guanxi is more a locative phenomena--anyone can have Guanxi within your community and business--whereas idea of an "old boy's network" pertains to ones connections and access to society at large. Additionally, Guanxi isn't explicitly related to a subpopulation. Anyone can have guanxi in a specific community, not just men. 2. Chabuduo literally means "not a big difference." More abstractly, I see it as a thought process where "adequacy is enough." I do see the connection with fail fast, where one doesn't wait until perfection to ship. However chabuduo to me doesn't exemplify the pursuit of improvement that underlies "fail fast, fail often."
    - bllguo 8y ago
      I mean it literally just means 'relationship.' It's just that networking is even more important in China where there are so many people competing for resources, where the bureaucracy and the systems are more corrupt, and where the culture values things like familial bonds and reciprocity more. It's part of survival there. It's a concept everywhere, it's just that it's not nearly as necessary in much of the West. You can get by just fine. The distinction, imo, is that the "old boys network" is networking strictly among the rich and powerful.
holoduke 8y ago
Just installed in on android. 90mb for a chat app. Really wonder what's inside. We have multiple apps with a whole lot more functionality. Never more than 20-30mb
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Are you sure about the "whole lot more functionality" thing? I am not aware of any other app that combines chat with taxis, for example.
- enedil 8y ago
  Oh really? And do you have built-in microblogging platform? Do you have OCR with English-Chinese and Chinese-English translation? Do you have mobile payments? Do you have discover people feature (by location)? Can you identify movies by recording audio? Not only payments are possible, you can send money to anyone in WeChat. Sadly, some of these functionality are not available for non Chinese people (people without account in Chinese bank).
  - holoduke 8y ago
    Didn't know so much is inside . Thought it is the Chinese WhatsApp variant
  - JCharante 8y ago
    > Can you identify movies by recording audio? Wait how can you do this? I've tried searching in English (can't write Chinese) to no avail.
    - enedil 8y ago
      I can read and write Chinese only partially, but that's not needed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd61em3tieo8ry0/Screenshot_20190119-135131.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd61em3tieo8ry0/Screenshot_2019011...
- usaar333 8y ago
  241 MB on my pixel 3. Though FB messenger (comparable feature set) is also bloated at 126 MB. (Whatsapp, pure chat, by comparison is 47 MB)
_bxg1 8y ago
My hope is that China demonstrates to the world how terribly this kind of digital-dystopia plays out, and serves as a cautionary tale for countries like England and companies like Google which are already (more slowly) heading in that direction.
- goldcd 8y ago
  Pssh - China just blocks stuff they don't like. Nice and simple. In the UK we've had stuff we don't like blocked, we've had mandatory tracking by your ISP, and now you have to register to watch porn...
  - briandear 8y ago
    Do you get arrested for sending videos of the Falklands or writing blogs critical of Winston Churchill?
    - chillacy 8y ago
      Why would you get banned for sharing the good British stuff? Maybe use examples of the stuff Britain is ashamed of. I don’t know about the UK but in some parts of the US you won’t get tracked per se but you will be shunned if you’re: pro communist (during the red scare), anti war (during Vietnam), ???? (Today)
- landryraccoon 8y ago
  > terribly this kind of digital-dystopia plays out Yeah, but what if it works? What if technology and the laws of our physical universe really do allow efficient, permanent and total totalitarianism?
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    That's exactly my worry.
  - jMyles 8y ago
    That question provokes a need for faith. Faith that whatever is emerging in this age represents a flavor of evolution with an appetite for the good, the beautiful, and the true.
ConfusedDog 8y ago
God forbid if I want to quit WeChat. The shit I get from my wife and relatives if I don't post anything, reply to something they posted or give them "red pockets" is absolutely ridiculous! It is probably the most successful social network app/money transfer app out there... and I don't like it. Maybe I'm turning into an old geezer or something...
- resouer 8y ago
  I call this diversity. And I don't feel you are a geezer at all.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I let my wife manage all our wechat posting, I’m responsible for all the Facebook posts. Sometimes it is hard to synchronize baby pics between the two.
  - briandear 8y ago
    If there was only a service that would allow sharing photos without WeChat or Facebook.. Its trivial to share photos using shared galleries in iCloud. Why Facebook is still considered valuable is beyond me. The last thing I want is photos of my kids on a Facebook type service.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      The American relatives use Facebook, the Chinese relatives use wechat, it’s not like we go out and tell them to use Snapchat for this. I’m not really worried about toddler pics on Facebook. Many people have complex conspiracy theories that they can be turned into CP or something, but they are all pretty impractical.
      - dingaling 8y ago
        My objection to putting toddler pics on social media is that we ask friends and relatives if it's OK to post photos of them, but by the time a child is old enough to give informed consent it's too late.
40acres 8y ago
WeChat utilitarian characteristics seem awesome, aside from it being a major commerce platform but I've heard of features that connect you to businesses, government, and other services that would be really helpful.
rellui 8y ago
Funny that this article shows up today right after a big update (I think within the last few days) where the most basic message notification broke. Yep, it literally doesn't show any message notifications unless I manually open up the app. Kinda useless in this state. This is probably not affecting many people since I haven't see anybody complain about it.
- vorg 8y ago
  I upgraded to v 7.0.0 a few weeks ago (when it first appeared), and WeChat runs 2 or 3 times slower on my old phone ever since. As for payments, sometimes it takes a few minutes to make a payment in a shop where I scan them. I'm starting to seek out larger shops where they scan me for payments because it's a lot quicker. I really don't want to buy a new phone because my old one still works for everything else. Sounds like WeChat/Huawei is the Chinese version of the old Microsoft/Intel duopoly.
resouer 8y ago
It's interesting and a bit scary to see how the reporter from NYT rendering WeChat, a daily used app developed by a HK IPO-ed tech giant, into a scary, wretched, government-controlled monitoring tool for restricting personal freedom. Tell me, how can a social media like Signal and WhatsApp win in a country of billon population without even a single one local office? Just because it's encrypted? Come on! How to say that? Either charlatan or simpleton. Talk with some "real" Chinese ppl, guys, and learn about what is WeChat.
- Zak 8y ago
  Prior to its acquisition by Facebook, WhatsApp gained significant market share in Europe, India, and Israel. The company is based in the US, and I don't think it had local offices in those areas before it was already popular there. So it is not obvious, or even true that a chat app needs a local office to become popular in a given region. It may be true that a chat app needs a local office to become popular in China, but it's definitely possible to believe otherwise without being a "charlatan or simpleton". As an aside, we don't talk to each other that way on Hacker News. Please do not insult people, and please explain why you think someone is wrong instead of claiming that it's obvious.
  - resouer 8y ago
    As X succeed in Europe, India, and Israel, then it's natural it should success in China. Sorry, my fault, I thought recognizing the diversity of things is "obvious" in HN.
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ggm 8y ago
I was in China, in the moment of activating WeChat when I put my phone down on my RFID passport. WeChat was the app which asked for Android permission to read the RFID tag. I ceased installation and removed the app.
samstave 8y ago
Serious question: We bitch and moan in the US about NSA-Google-FB-Amazon etc spying on private conversations/things we say outloud etc. Why on EARTH would you want a Chinese WeChat account, assuming you had any privacy concerns in a country like the US?
- chillacy 8y ago
  You say we but there is no hivemind, just a bunch of bees, and some are less privacy conscious than others.
- anon46u8 8y ago
  I have friends in a China and there is no other way to talk to them. Also, I don’t live in China.
omouse 8y ago
And then we have things like this, where in Canada, a Liberal Party candidate used WeChat to post a racist campaign message: https://globalnews.ca/news/4853439/karen-wang-liberal-burnaby-south-candidate-wechat-message-controversy/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4853439/karen-wang-liberal-burnab... How can any journalists learn about this story without a WeChat account or without having some insider (local Chinese person) who has access to a WeChat account? Multiple Internets are already here, and we've got to work at bridging them all over again.
QML 8y ago
There was a recent If Then episode that commented on how China’s declining demand of iPhones may be in part to how people there are agnostic to the hardware and more dependent on the software apps ran on the device (WeChat, Alipay, etc.).

150 points by annefauvre 8y ago

The combination of Wechat and making it effectively the only option through the Great Firewall is an amazing tool for shutting out foreign voices from Chinese social media. The apparent policy on connecting to Wechat from outside the mainland is "don't". It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, but the others routinely have their service degraded by the government so they aren't a viable option. Personally, it think in the long term this sort of compartmentalization is harmful, it too often facilitates groupthink and missing valuable input from people with a different perspective. It's damaging to a society and is going to have repercussions.

taurath 8y ago
> It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist There’s a lot more stick than carrot from the government to connecting outside, so a lot of people are just avoiding concequences rather than doing what they want. OTOH, we complain about the same problems in our “free/open” internet as well.
mistermann 8y ago
> The combination of Wechat and making it effectively the only option through the Great Firewall is an amazing tool for shutting out foreign voices from Chinese social media. That plus the language barrier also makes it a convenient way for WeChat users who immigrate to other countries to avoid integrating into overall society as well as discussing controversial matters like tax minimization strategies. I'd like to think my government has considered the latter and is doing something about it but I'm not too hopeful.
porpoisely 8y ago
Not just foreign voices. Domestic chinese voices as well. As technology/money becomes intertwined, it's scary how easily large tech companies can silence and ruin people's lives. Even worse, just the threat of these companies can silence voices. As china and the rest of the world move away from cash to digital payment, can anyone really risk offending wechat or any other tech/payment service? Unfortunately, we are having similar problems here as well as our large tech/finance companies (social media, registrars, paypal, patreon, stripe, mastercard, etc ) are being used to silence voices and intimidate people. Even more worrisome is the effect that money and investment from our largest foreign investors china, saudi arabia, israel, etc will have going forward. Will tech censor even more to appease large foreign investors? We know how foreign money and investment affects everything from hollywood to news coverage to politics. Can tech be immune from that?
- jandrese 8y ago
  It should be noted that the digital payment system China is moving to is Wechat. If you try to go to the mainland and use cash outside of tourist areas you quickly run into trouble. Even for things that most people assume are cash run, like Taxis.
rchaud 8y ago
> It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, Network effects. Look into any thread here about people quitting FB. You'll see several valid use cases showing why people stay on the platform despite its serious flaws.
- ngokevin 8y ago
  Wechat is pretty good if you're in China. You can use it to do everything (payments, taxi, tickets, transfer, calls, games) versus having tons of miscellaneous poor apps. Every store and even panhandlers accept Wechat. I'm in the middle of SF and every place is still on cash only or no mobile payments such that it's unreasonable to depend on mobile payments.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I just came back from visiting SF and didn’t have to use cash at all; I had food, drink, I went to the grocery store....even Caltrain took credit cards (but it did 12 years ago). What did I do wrong? Living in Seattle, I haven’t been to an ATM in 6 months. The last time I had to use cash was ironically in Boston China town (a cheap Banh Mi place wouldn’t take credit cards).
    - estro 8y ago
      Quite a few bars, and restaurants in the Mission, are cash-only.
      - cal5k 8y ago
        This has nothing to do with lack of technology adoption and everything to do with avoiding taxes.
        paulie_a 8y ago
        And transaction fees
iOsiris 8y ago
> It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist, but the others routinely have their service degraded by the government so they aren't a viable option. Do those other options actually exist within China? I thought they were blocked and that's why WeChat is dominate.
- jandrese 8y ago
  I remember at least one of the popular third party chat apps like Signal or Telegram made a big push to squeeze past the Great Firewall by hosting on AWS and being judicious with their traffic patterns. IIRC they even manged to get AWS shut out of China at times.
  - tivert 8y ago
    > I remember at least one of the popular third party chat apps like Signal or Telegram made a big push to squeeze past the Great Firewall by hosting on AWS and being judicious with their traffic patterns. IIRC they even manged to get AWS shut out of China at times. I think you're talking about domain fronting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_fronting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_fronting). IIRC, Google, Amazon, and MS all blocked it because they were afraid of getting blocked. Though I also vaguely recall that Russia was blocking big blocks of AWS IPs for a time to try to stamp out Telegram. I was in China recently, and Signal actually seemed to work on a local wifi network (with cellular data disabled), so maybe they've got some new circumvention technology in place. I didn't thoroughly try to test it since 99% of the time I just used data roaming on a foreign carrier to avoid the firewall.
- resouer 8y ago
  The latest competitor WeChat kicked to ass is MSN China, guess it is blocked or not :-)
keyboardnerd 8y ago
> It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist people use it because: 1. If the conversation is not about criticizing gov in group chat or "moment" timeline, it's ok. Group chat/Timeline are not treated as public space, and talking bad in public is prohibited. 2. friends/family are on it and professional network is also on it. 3. store member cards are on it, you can order food and checkout in restaurants or online on it, you can send/receive money on it; using third party integrated services, you can book hotel, train, flight, pay utilities; you can even play games using the internal "tiny apps". It brings so much good things, while you just need to keep silent about specific things. Privacy is still a relatively new concept to China, and the true freedom of speech is just so distant that the upper level doesn't seem to like it and you can't really oppose such overwhelming power. So why don't they just relax and use it.
1ris 8y ago
>It seems incredible that people would want to use such a restrictive service when much more open ones exist I have neither a WeChat or Facebook account. I just don't see any real usecase for me and never missed it. But people are using it because it is usefull for them, even thou i can't see why people arent just using the alternatives that arent a murdochesque cancer in democracy. People just dont care about the poltical implications of the technology they are using. People often just want it to work, because usually it doesn't. And WeChat is really good software. Its better than almost everything i have ever seen before. From my insight it is completely out of league for facebook. WeChat compares to facebook like Genera to CP/M. A glimpse at it gave that "the future is right now feeling" like nothing within the last 10 years.

gok 8y ago

Where by "the world" we of course mean "mainland China" Edit: the title has been changed; it used to read "WeChat is taking over the world" or something

rakoo 8y ago
As someone not from the US, I can assure you the same mindset does appear on American websites about the US.
- DeonPenny 8y ago
  I thought american tech companies were used in most places outside of the US. From what seen facebook, google, amazon, etc are fairly global reaching at this point.
  - adventured 8y ago
    The globalized US tech companies / services / products. YouTube, Netflix, Wikipedia, Uber, Google search, iOS & iPhone / watch / iPad, Mac, Android, Windows, Microsoft Office/365, Facebook core, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Gmail & G services, Google Maps, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail / Outlook.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Imgur, Twitter, LinkedIn, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Adobe / Photoshop, iTunes / Apple Music, Wordpress, Github, Stack Exchange, Steam, Airbnb, Priceline / Booking, Amazon.com, eBay, PayPal, AWS, Oracle, Salesforce, Akamai, Cloudflare, VMWare, Lets Encrypt, GoDaddy, Craigslist, Symantec, Red Hat, Activision, Electronic Arts, Autodesk, IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Cisco, Broadcom, Qualcomm, Dell / EMC, HP, Western Digital, Lam Research, Applied Materials, Micron, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices There are a bunch more that one could argue for, however that covers the bulk of them.
  - Markoff 8y ago
    Reddit it's pretty much unknown in Europe I'd you check statistics Amazon it's also the last option i would be looking at when shopping for something online in Europe
    - 8y ago

justicezyx 8y ago

Kind of funny. WeChat is more taking over the world before ByteDance's phenomenal growth in the past 2 years. Now to say it's taking the world appears to show that the author has no idea what's happening in China...

hero76 8y ago
right they just released a clone of snapchat. Android client looks like a decompilation of snapchat app
- yorwba 8y ago
  According to Wikipedia, WeChat was first released in January 2011, while Snapchat only came out in September 2011. I conclude that Snapchat is more likely to be a clone of WeChat than the other way around. Edit: To be clear, while I haven't used Snapchat, based on what I've heard about it I'd say that the two apps are nothing alike except for having some kind of chat functionality.
  - napoleond 8y ago
    Parent was not talking about WeChat: https://technode.com/2019/01/18/bytedances-snapchat-clone-isnt-wechat-killer-but-tencent-should-worry/ https://technode.com/2019/01/18/bytedances-snapchat-clone-is...
    - yorwba 8y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. I read the "just" as "only" instead of "this week" and also thought it referred to WeChat instead of Bytedance's new Duoshan, which I totally hadn't heard of before.

smaili 8y ago

> the messaging app that’s the equivalent of WhatsApp plus Facebook plus PayPal plus Uber plus GrubHub plus many other things. It's unfortunate not much of their architecture is publicly shared or discussed. With their massive amount of users and incredibly diverse service offerings I'd love to see their backend architecture design choices/tradeoffs.

azurezyq 8y ago
Actually they shared a lot but vast majority of them in Chinese.
- faitswulff 8y ago
  Turnabout for an industry dominated by English.
- yorwba 8y ago
  Could you link to some Chinese-language resources they published?
  - azurezyq 8y ago
    Just did a brief search and found a few links: https://www.infoq.cn/article/the-road-of-the-growth-weixin-background https://www.infoq.cn/article/the-road-of-the-growth-weixin-b... https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1005631 https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1005631 There seems more on cloud.tencent.com/developer. And you can check their presentations on major per-field conferences like AI or big data or something.
hero76 8y ago
here is an article in english of wechats architecture https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/11/16/overload-control-for-scaling-wechat-microservices/ https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/11/16/overload-control-for-sca...
justicezyx 8y ago
Well, if you used the app, you'll see that these components are largely independent. IMHO, architecture wise, they are not particularly interesting.

dwighttk 8y ago

Article title is currently the slightly less hyperbolic: "To Cover China, There’s No Substitute for WeChat"

sctb 8y ago
Yes, thanks! We've updated the headline from “WeChat taking over the world”.

wufufufu 8y ago

The WeChat MacOS client requires some ridiculous QR code dance to login every time I open it. That alone prevents me from using it over iMessage / FB messenger when communicating with my family. The only time I use WeChat is if family members are in China where I assume they have banned FB messenger and iMessage.

enedil 8y ago
Afaik iMessage isn't banned.
- chairmanwow 8y ago
  This is because Apple gave the party the keys to the kingdom.
throwaway3023 8y ago
I also find it a hassle. I wonder if they do it because they think it's better security? That a user will always have their cell phone, and logging in on a computer is more rare?
- htfy96 8y ago
  It's for app-lockin. Most people will not uninstall an app after installation. Moreover many new Internet users in China cannot even remember a password that's secure enough.
toephu2 8y ago
That's basically 2-factor authentication. It's more secure than entering a password. WeChat was also built as a mobile-first app, the desktop experience was an afterthought.
- Zarel 8y ago
  2-factor authentication generally keeps you logged in, instead of forcing you to re-do the authentication every day.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kweks 8y ago

If you're a foreigner, getting a functioning WeChat account is near to impossible these days. Validating a foreign account involves sponsorship from a local account. Local accounts can only sponsor one user every three months. This is a policy that has been getting steadily more and more restrictive. I have partners who simply give westerners a telephone with a new account + Sim loaded and bound to a local to avoid hassles. Life in China today without WeChat is a bit like life in the USA today but communicating only by postal mail and paying for things with traveller's cheques. It's possible, but it's not a world you want to live in. If WeChat is taking over the world.. it's a world without foreigners.

holoduke 8y ago
I just created an account (in Europe) on an android device. Is that any different from yours story?
- TulliusCicero 8y ago
  I think that's a different type of WeChat account that doesn't require validation.
- kweks 8y ago
  You may find within X days (one week to three weeks) your account will be locked, with the only means available to unblock by jumping through the hoops above. I watched three locals take literally one hour yesterday to validate one account for an EU foreigner, and my other EU partners have had experiences similar to yours: works for a few days then locks. If it works for you.. feel lucky.
  - jacob_rezi 8y ago
    I've had this ongoing experience for the past two weeks after coming back from a business trip in Shanghai & BJ. Luckily I made a few contacts who were able to help out. https://i.imgur.com/37VqCZa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/37VqCZa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XRJuQjj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/XRJuQjj.jpg

nathan_long 8y ago

I had to install WeChat once on my phone for business reasons. From what I read of the Chinese government's control over it, I felt nervous that my phone was compromised by installing it. You could say that Facebook is just as bad, but 1) I don't install Facebook and 2) I still trust the US Government more than the Chinese one.

iforgotpassword 8y ago
I trust neither really, but I feel my data would be more useful to the US one.
deleted 8y ago
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landryraccoon 8y ago
I'm not sure if this is still the case but Google used to not even allow employees to bring their laptops to China. If a Googler had to go to China they would be issued a special laptop just for that trip. I have no idea what IT had to do to that laptop after the trip to make sure it was clean. If I were going to China on business I'd have a separate cell phone just for that purpose. You can just swap sim cards if you need to keep the same number. Smartphones are so cheap nowadays you might as well have a burner for that purpose.
- tivert 8y ago
  > If I were going to China on business I'd have a separate cell phone just for that purpose. You can just swap sim cards if you need to keep the same number. Smartphones are so cheap nowadays you might as well have a burner for that purpose. A SIM card is an independent computer that runs a stripped-down version of Java. According to this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17083221 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17083221), the cell network can even upload programs to it to run.
  - free652 8y ago
    Sim isn't a computer, it's just a secure data store. SIM cards predate java afaik.

debt 8y ago

Does anyone here have a business presence on WeChat? If so, what has your experience been like?

jacob_rezi 8y ago
Two of our Chinese partners conduct their entire business through a collection of groups all related to careers. Since we are a foreign firm located in South Korea - they sell our services to their users on our behalf. Amazing how an entire company can be ran solely on wechat
- lancewiggs 8y ago
  That is how a premier western brand hotel we stayed at gets things done here in China.
- dingaling 8y ago
  That's terrifying. The IT section of their business continuity plan must be empty beyond "don't get kicked off WeChat"

throw7 8y ago

Reminds me of some earlier article about a chinese daughter who pursued a "solitary life". With few chinese "social connections" it was tough for her to get things done for her aging father? mother?. That would seem to make for a strong driver for "digital connections" ala wechat. Hate to break it to the author though: western companies aren't going to be the ones doing the digital liberation. It's not like that's what their doing here anyway.

Invictus0 8y ago
I believe it was this NYT article about guanxi: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/international-world/the-bitter-regrets-of-a-useless-chinese-daughter.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/international-wor...
- throwaway3023 8y ago
  Guanxi sounds like the "Old boy network." And "Chabuduo" sounds similar to "Fail fast, fail often."
  - gvhst 8y ago
    I'd like to respectfully provide some contrasting ideas regarding these two points. 1. Guanxi is related to one's network or clout, but there are several distinct differences between the chinese concept of Guanxi and the western notion of "old boy's network." Primarily, guanxi is more a locative phenomena--anyone can have Guanxi within your community and business--whereas idea of an "old boy's network" pertains to ones connections and access to society at large. Additionally, Guanxi isn't explicitly related to a subpopulation. Anyone can have guanxi in a specific community, not just men. 2. Chabuduo literally means "not a big difference." More abstractly, I see it as a thought process where "adequacy is enough." I do see the connection with fail fast, where one doesn't wait until perfection to ship. However chabuduo to me doesn't exemplify the pursuit of improvement that underlies "fail fast, fail often."
  - bllguo 8y ago
    I mean it literally just means 'relationship.' It's just that networking is even more important in China where there are so many people competing for resources, where the bureaucracy and the systems are more corrupt, and where the culture values things like familial bonds and reciprocity more. It's part of survival there. It's a concept everywhere, it's just that it's not nearly as necessary in much of the West. You can get by just fine. The distinction, imo, is that the "old boys network" is networking strictly among the rich and powerful.

holoduke 8y ago

Just installed in on android. 90mb for a chat app. Really wonder what's inside. We have multiple apps with a whole lot more functionality. Never more than 20-30mb

TomMarius 8y ago
Are you sure about the "whole lot more functionality" thing? I am not aware of any other app that combines chat with taxis, for example.
enedil 8y ago
Oh really? And do you have built-in microblogging platform? Do you have OCR with English-Chinese and Chinese-English translation? Do you have mobile payments? Do you have discover people feature (by location)? Can you identify movies by recording audio? Not only payments are possible, you can send money to anyone in WeChat. Sadly, some of these functionality are not available for non Chinese people (people without account in Chinese bank).
- holoduke 8y ago
  Didn't know so much is inside . Thought it is the Chinese WhatsApp variant
- JCharante 8y ago
  > Can you identify movies by recording audio? Wait how can you do this? I've tried searching in English (can't write Chinese) to no avail.
  - enedil 8y ago
    I can read and write Chinese only partially, but that's not needed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd61em3tieo8ry0/Screenshot_20190119-135131.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/bd61em3tieo8ry0/Screenshot_2019011...
usaar333 8y ago
241 MB on my pixel 3. Though FB messenger (comparable feature set) is also bloated at 126 MB. (Whatsapp, pure chat, by comparison is 47 MB)

_bxg1 8y ago

My hope is that China demonstrates to the world how terribly this kind of digital-dystopia plays out, and serves as a cautionary tale for countries like England and companies like Google which are already (more slowly) heading in that direction.

goldcd 8y ago
Pssh - China just blocks stuff they don't like. Nice and simple. In the UK we've had stuff we don't like blocked, we've had mandatory tracking by your ISP, and now you have to register to watch porn...
- briandear 8y ago
  Do you get arrested for sending videos of the Falklands or writing blogs critical of Winston Churchill?
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Why would you get banned for sharing the good British stuff? Maybe use examples of the stuff Britain is ashamed of. I don’t know about the UK but in some parts of the US you won’t get tracked per se but you will be shunned if you’re: pro communist (during the red scare), anti war (during Vietnam), ???? (Today)
landryraccoon 8y ago
> terribly this kind of digital-dystopia plays out Yeah, but what if it works? What if technology and the laws of our physical universe really do allow efficient, permanent and total totalitarianism?
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  That's exactly my worry.
- jMyles 8y ago
  That question provokes a need for faith. Faith that whatever is emerging in this age represents a flavor of evolution with an appetite for the good, the beautiful, and the true.

ConfusedDog 8y ago

God forbid if I want to quit WeChat. The shit I get from my wife and relatives if I don't post anything, reply to something they posted or give them "red pockets" is absolutely ridiculous! It is probably the most successful social network app/money transfer app out there... and I don't like it. Maybe I'm turning into an old geezer or something...

resouer 8y ago
I call this diversity. And I don't feel you are a geezer at all.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
I let my wife manage all our wechat posting, I’m responsible for all the Facebook posts. Sometimes it is hard to synchronize baby pics between the two.
- briandear 8y ago
  If there was only a service that would allow sharing photos without WeChat or Facebook.. Its trivial to share photos using shared galleries in iCloud. Why Facebook is still considered valuable is beyond me. The last thing I want is photos of my kids on a Facebook type service.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    The American relatives use Facebook, the Chinese relatives use wechat, it’s not like we go out and tell them to use Snapchat for this. I’m not really worried about toddler pics on Facebook. Many people have complex conspiracy theories that they can be turned into CP or something, but they are all pretty impractical.
    - dingaling 8y ago
      My objection to putting toddler pics on social media is that we ask friends and relatives if it's OK to post photos of them, but by the time a child is old enough to give informed consent it's too late.

40acres 8y ago

WeChat utilitarian characteristics seem awesome, aside from it being a major commerce platform but I've heard of features that connect you to businesses, government, and other services that would be really helpful.

rellui 8y ago

Funny that this article shows up today right after a big update (I think within the last few days) where the most basic message notification broke. Yep, it literally doesn't show any message notifications unless I manually open up the app. Kinda useless in this state. This is probably not affecting many people since I haven't see anybody complain about it.

vorg 8y ago
I upgraded to v 7.0.0 a few weeks ago (when it first appeared), and WeChat runs 2 or 3 times slower on my old phone ever since. As for payments, sometimes it takes a few minutes to make a payment in a shop where I scan them. I'm starting to seek out larger shops where they scan me for payments because it's a lot quicker. I really don't want to buy a new phone because my old one still works for everything else. Sounds like WeChat/Huawei is the Chinese version of the old Microsoft/Intel duopoly.

resouer 8y ago

It's interesting and a bit scary to see how the reporter from NYT rendering WeChat, a daily used app developed by a HK IPO-ed tech giant, into a scary, wretched, government-controlled monitoring tool for restricting personal freedom. Tell me, how can a social media like Signal and WhatsApp win in a country of billon population without even a single one local office? Just because it's encrypted? Come on! How to say that? Either charlatan or simpleton. Talk with some "real" Chinese ppl, guys, and learn about what is WeChat.

Zak 8y ago
Prior to its acquisition by Facebook, WhatsApp gained significant market share in Europe, India, and Israel. The company is based in the US, and I don't think it had local offices in those areas before it was already popular there. So it is not obvious, or even true that a chat app needs a local office to become popular in a given region. It may be true that a chat app needs a local office to become popular in China, but it's definitely possible to believe otherwise without being a "charlatan or simpleton". As an aside, we don't talk to each other that way on Hacker News. Please do not insult people, and please explain why you think someone is wrong instead of claiming that it's obvious.
- resouer 8y ago
  As X succeed in Europe, India, and Israel, then it's natural it should success in China. Sorry, my fault, I thought recognizing the diversity of things is "obvious" in HN.

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ggm 8y ago

I was in China, in the moment of activating WeChat when I put my phone down on my RFID passport. WeChat was the app which asked for Android permission to read the RFID tag. I ceased installation and removed the app.

samstave 8y ago

Serious question: We bitch and moan in the US about NSA-Google-FB-Amazon etc spying on private conversations/things we say outloud etc. Why on EARTH would you want a Chinese WeChat account, assuming you had any privacy concerns in a country like the US?

chillacy 8y ago
You say we but there is no hivemind, just a bunch of bees, and some are less privacy conscious than others.
anon46u8 8y ago
I have friends in a China and there is no other way to talk to them. Also, I don’t live in China.

omouse 8y ago

And then we have things like this, where in Canada, a Liberal Party candidate used WeChat to post a racist campaign message: https://globalnews.ca/news/4853439/karen-wang-liberal-burnaby-south-candidate-wechat-message-controversy/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4853439/karen-wang-liberal-burnab... How can any journalists learn about this story without a WeChat account or without having some insider (local Chinese person) who has access to a WeChat account? Multiple Internets are already here, and we've got to work at bridging them all over again.

QML 8y ago

There was a recent If Then episode that commented on how China’s declining demand of iPhones may be in part to how people there are agnostic to the hardware and more dependent on the software apps ran on the device (WeChat, Alipay, etc.).