[hclalpha]

This has been like this for at least 2 years over there now. This is facebook/whatsapp best's and only strategy to stop living off consumer data and start living off an actual service industry. Very poor management decision from my perspective, perhaps they had trouble gathering political support.

[chii]

> stop living off consumer data and start living off an actual service industry.

the apps in china boomed due to the fact that credit cards weren't popular nor available at the time, and the opportunity for the app (wechat) to become the payment method presented itself.

This can't happen in the western world, because credit cards are so ubiquitous, and displacing it is high neigh impossible.

[eddieplan9]

This.

Also those payment apps are like PayPal in the sense it provides very little fraud detection and protection. You are petty much on your own. They process almost no chargebacks, for example.

The Chinese consumers have vastly different expectations when it comes to money because the lack of protection throughout history. To them, it looks very unsafe to just swipe a card without a PIN, and chargeback is an alien concept.

[TACIXAT]

Background on the two. Alipay started similar to eBay, serving e-commerce, and WeChat payments captured the P2P market. Both have expanded to physical retail.