[rahimnathwani]

"There are plenty of location services if you don't want to use what is built into iPhone."

You've missed, or are ignoring, my point: in China, if I want to share my location with a bunch of friends, I can do it almost instantly. Just add them to a WeChat group and make two taps.

With a group of friends in the US, I can't, because there's no single app/service that they're all using, that has that feature.

Also:

- Card skimming isn't a uniquely "Chinese problem".)

- The fact that you're comparing mobile utility bill payment in China, with autopay in the US, suggests to me you haven't tried mobile bill payment in China.

- You are right about Fandango - it appears their mobile app has offered seat selection in many theatres for at least a couple of year.

[seanmcdirmid]

Card skimming isn't uniquely a Chinese problem, but asshole credit card issuers who put the burden of proof in the customer rather than store are. Seriously, china has unique self-made problems that don't exist elsewhere.

Fandango has been around for many years.

We just moved to the USA from Beijing. We have pretty much everything we had back in china without wechat.