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I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"? Do people like the wechat experience because you have o

I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"? Do people like the wechat experience because you have one login and don't have to go through an onboarding process in every mini-app?

bunga-bunga 3y ago
> I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"? Why are you downloading apps from the App Store instead of running separate OSes? This is the same concept, just one level down. Really, WeChat is just a browser with extra APIs and a website catalog. > Do people like the wechat experience because you have one login and don't have to go through an onboarding process in every mini-app? I’m not fully familiar with its history, but from what I understand Tencent added more and more “apps” to their chat app and eventually let third parties into it. This is exactly what Facebook did in 2010: we also had third party “apps” on Facebook. They were also just iframed websites with extra APIs.
- Andrex 3y ago
  > I’m not fully familiar with its history, but from what I understand Tencent added more and more “apps” to their chat app and eventually let third parties into it. This is exactly what Facebook did in 2010: we also had third party “apps” on Facebook. They were also just iframed websites with extra APIs. It's crazy how long ago this feels. FarmVille legitimately took over the country for a bit.
oldgradstudent 3y ago
> I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"? The web browser is an everything app on your desktop. As Marc Andreessen said at the time: > Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > As Marc Andreessen said at the time: >> Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers. It's funny how history proved him so wrong and so right at the same time.
wkat4242 3y ago
I think they 'like' it more because it's the Chinese communist party control and surveillance tool. So they make it ubiquitous in China. Whether they like it or not doesn't matter. Choice is not really free there. I mean, there are some other choices but they also answer to the party. It's more for show.
- em-bee 3y ago
  wechat got popular all on its own. nobody is forced to install wechat. there are also no government services that you might want to use that would "encourage" you to install it.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    No but they make their society depend on it. People don't install it because it's so great, but because without it you can't do anything. They don't push it on the user side but on the vendor side.
    - em-bee 3y ago
      i didn't see an pushing. and from all the social media and messaging apps that i have seen or used, wechat is the most convenient to use. it beats telegram, and it leaves whatsapp and signal in the dust with the things it can do and the convenience it provides. it really is that good. people elsewere depend on facebook just as much as people in china depend on wechat. not more and not less. alternatives do exist for the determined. you just have to accept that you can't easily stay in contact with everyone. the same tradeof you have to make if you don't use facebook.
em-bee 3y ago
the concept is that the primary feature that wechat provides is your identity with your wechat account. you connect to other people and you have verified their identity as well. from there it is most logical that you then want to use that identity to share work, make appointments, pay for things, etc. the miniapp that we used the most was a voting tool. you could see who in the group had voted for what and it was very useful to have it all integrated, as opposed to an external website where none of the voters were verified to be the same people from the group. sending money is also a no brainer once you can trust that the person you are sending money to is really the same one. and external payment system means that you would have to verify that the person you are sending money to is the same person you were talking to on wechat. that's just extra steps. if happens of course otherwise alipay would not exist, but part of that is because alibaba has other features (like the market) that people want to use, and they do not support wechat pay. i wuld suspect that if they had supported wechat pay, then alipay would not have been able to gain any significant market share at all.
- vanjajaja1 3y ago
  I'm not even anon on twitter, but bonkers to think that people would want to directly connect their finances to things they say in online in public in this day and age
  - em-bee 3y ago
    wechat content is not public. the one feature it does not have is a public space where you can see what people say or share without being connected to them (or being in a group with them. groups are limited to 500 people, so even there not many people see what you share). there is also no algorithmic pushing of content from people i am connected with.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    Maybe there is an expectation from superapp users that their interactions are private by default(and they are unless explicitly warned), like it is on a Discord server.
numpad0 3y ago
It's just that if you had more user distraction on your app in a single-app platform, that'll earn your app some long tail of extra attention and bad user decisions and therefore revenue. Kind of like a chat window in e-commerce websites, or imagine on the bottom right of HN were a miniature minesweeper screen. Add enough of those and someone calls yours a superapp.
gantrol 3y ago
Because nearly all Chinese people use WeChat, but not all Chinese people use iPhones. For Chinese people, you could say that WeChat serves as an OS with a greater coverage. It could even be said that WeChat represents half of China's mobile Internet. Only after acquiring a substantial user base did WeChat launch its "Mini Programs". This feature has further boosted the usage of WeChat. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, certain types of apps forced people in remote areas to start using WeChat. However, the fundamental reason is that the usage rate of WeChat was already high. This explains why, outside of China, WeChat's "Mini Programs" aren't particularly striking: in those regions, there simply aren't enough WeChat users.

bunga-bunga 3y ago

> I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"? Why are you downloading apps from the App Store instead of running separate OSes? This is the same concept, just one level down. Really, WeChat is just a browser with extra APIs and a website catalog. > Do people like the wechat experience because you have one login and don't have to go through an onboarding process in every mini-app? I’m not fully familiar with its history, but from what I understand Tencent added more and more “apps” to their chat app and eventually let third parties into it. This is exactly what Facebook did in 2010: we also had third party “apps” on Facebook. They were also just iframed websites with extra APIs.

Andrex 3y ago
> I’m not fully familiar with its history, but from what I understand Tencent added more and more “apps” to their chat app and eventually let third parties into it. This is exactly what Facebook did in 2010: we also had third party “apps” on Facebook. They were also just iframed websites with extra APIs. It's crazy how long ago this feels. FarmVille legitimately took over the country for a bit.

oldgradstudent 3y ago

> I don't totally understand the concept of having an everything app. Isn't the OS the "everything app"? The web browser is an everything app on your desktop. As Marc Andreessen said at the time: > Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers.

gottorf 3y ago
> As Marc Andreessen said at the time: >> Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers. It's funny how history proved him so wrong and so right at the same time.

wkat4242 3y ago

I think they 'like' it more because it's the Chinese communist party control and surveillance tool. So they make it ubiquitous in China. Whether they like it or not doesn't matter. Choice is not really free there. I mean, there are some other choices but they also answer to the party. It's more for show.

em-bee 3y ago
wechat got popular all on its own. nobody is forced to install wechat. there are also no government services that you might want to use that would "encourage" you to install it.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  No but they make their society depend on it. People don't install it because it's so great, but because without it you can't do anything. They don't push it on the user side but on the vendor side.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    i didn't see an pushing. and from all the social media and messaging apps that i have seen or used, wechat is the most convenient to use. it beats telegram, and it leaves whatsapp and signal in the dust with the things it can do and the convenience it provides. it really is that good. people elsewere depend on facebook just as much as people in china depend on wechat. not more and not less. alternatives do exist for the determined. you just have to accept that you can't easily stay in contact with everyone. the same tradeof you have to make if you don't use facebook.

em-bee 3y ago

the concept is that the primary feature that wechat provides is your identity with your wechat account. you connect to other people and you have verified their identity as well. from there it is most logical that you then want to use that identity to share work, make appointments, pay for things, etc. the miniapp that we used the most was a voting tool. you could see who in the group had voted for what and it was very useful to have it all integrated, as opposed to an external website where none of the voters were verified to be the same people from the group. sending money is also a no brainer once you can trust that the person you are sending money to is really the same one. and external payment system means that you would have to verify that the person you are sending money to is the same person you were talking to on wechat. that's just extra steps. if happens of course otherwise alipay would not exist, but part of that is because alibaba has other features (like the market) that people want to use, and they do not support wechat pay. i wuld suspect that if they had supported wechat pay, then alipay would not have been able to gain any significant market share at all.

vanjajaja1 3y ago
I'm not even anon on twitter, but bonkers to think that people would want to directly connect their finances to things they say in online in public in this day and age
- em-bee 3y ago
  wechat content is not public. the one feature it does not have is a public space where you can see what people say or share without being connected to them (or being in a group with them. groups are limited to 500 people, so even there not many people see what you share). there is also no algorithmic pushing of content from people i am connected with.
- numpad0 3y ago
  Maybe there is an expectation from superapp users that their interactions are private by default(and they are unless explicitly warned), like it is on a Discord server.

numpad0 3y ago

It's just that if you had more user distraction on your app in a single-app platform, that'll earn your app some long tail of extra attention and bad user decisions and therefore revenue. Kind of like a chat window in e-commerce websites, or imagine on the bottom right of HN were a miniature minesweeper screen. Add enough of those and someone calls yours a superapp.

gantrol 3y ago

Because nearly all Chinese people use WeChat, but not all Chinese people use iPhones. For Chinese people, you could say that WeChat serves as an OS with a greater coverage. It could even be said that WeChat represents half of China's mobile Internet. Only after acquiring a substantial user base did WeChat launch its "Mini Programs". This feature has further boosted the usage of WeChat. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, certain types of apps forced people in remote areas to start using WeChat. However, the fundamental reason is that the usage rate of WeChat was already high. This explains why, outside of China, WeChat's "Mini Programs" aren't particularly striking: in those regions, there simply aren't enough WeChat users.