692

“If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”

Well that sounds terrifying!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] cyd@lemmy.world 43 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The Chinese super apps didn't really have government institutions on board, aside from the chat censorship aspect which was the main thing the government was originally paying attention to. In other aspects, the Chinese government and its regulators didn't initially get involved, and the rapid dominance of Alibaba and Tencent took them by surprise.

The super apps benefitted from a mix of rapid smartphone adoption, first mover advantages, weak consumer protections, and fierce competition with each other. It's probably that combination of circumstances that's hard to replicate, not the authoritarian country bit (there are lots of authoritarian countries that haven't fostered super apps).

The Chinese government was not entirely happy about the result; for example, the dominance of WeChat Pay and AliPay poses a threat to the state-owned banks, which are a major channel of government control over the economy. That is why the Chinese government has spent the last few years cracking down on the super app companies in various ways.

this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
692 points (86.1% liked)

Technology

57226 readers
4494 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS