It's not like you can choose in the West either, either :).
Number one goal of any software service today is to make its offering exclusive in some way - exclusive content, exclusive deals, exclusive integrations, exclusive set of participants (network effects), going super-broad super fast because infinite VC money lets you keep operating at a loss indefinitely, etc.
You're making it sound as if the difference in choice between China and western countries is negligible. Surely that's not the case? If every VC company tries to pull you into their walled garden, I can still choose from among a variety of said walled gardens.
I could be wrong of course, since I don't know how many AliPay and WeChat competitors there are.
> If every VC company tries to pull you into their walled garden, I can still choose from among a variety of said walled gardens.
When they play it right, you're forced to choose all of them, or at least a significant subset of them, so that their partially overlapping offering add up to the actual thing you need.
The competitors at the consumer-facing super app level (with mini programs of varying awkwardness) include Meituan, XiaoHongShu, and to an extent, Toutiao, JD.com, and Baidu. But you don't need those gardens as a publisher if you're on Android--ironically because Google services are banned, there are over a dozen app stores to competing to fill the void. Compare that with the western duopoly of Apple App Store and Google Play.
Number one goal of any software service today is to make its offering exclusive in some way - exclusive content, exclusive deals, exclusive integrations, exclusive set of participants (network effects), going super-broad super fast because infinite VC money lets you keep operating at a loss indefinitely, etc.