The thing is that no one is going to explain to you what's going on in China. Understanding the Chinese ecosystem takes considerable effort and the people that do understand would rather talk to others in the know than to a wall. I actually cringe a bit even writing this.
If you want to think that there's no difference between PayPal, eBay and modern Chinese versions you are free to do so. But until you've used these things in China (or at least had sufficient imagination), you won't actually know if there is something there.
I've used eBay, Aliexpress and native TaoBao directly. About the only difference is their current market cap. They are so alike in user interaction and session flow one could probably reuse 80% of test cases unmodified.
Wechat is great but here (Norway) payments have been a solved problem for years. I'm not even sure I used cash this year at all other than to unlock a luggage trolley at the airport and it's been like that for over a decade. Even the bank card transaction is so smooth, fast (seconds) and ubiquitous that mobile payment services like Vipps struggled to get a foothold.
Wechat is great but here (Norway) payments have been a solved problem for years. I'm not even sure I used cash this year at all other than to unlock a luggage trolley at the airport and it's been like that for over a decade. Even the bank card transaction is so smooth, fast (seconds) and ubiquitous that mobile payment services like Vipps struggled to get a foothold.