In China we see the future

Ok let's just get right to the point.

In China, everybody uses Wechat or Alipay to transact for everything. You can pay your friend, your butcher, the restaurant, your phone bills. Through mini-apps in Wechat, you can make appointments with government agencies. Using another app, you can buy plane tickets, train tickets etc. You can even use the app for public transit. Of course, there's also instant messaging with Wechat and its Moments function is like the old Instagram (where you see mostly your friend updates). You can get a private-hire car using the Gao De maps app.

In China, the private hire cars are now all electric cars. As I understood it, it's a no-brainer for drivers as the running cost of electric cars is way lower. Apparently negligible electric cost vs 8rmb/litre of petrol. Even though electric cars cost slightly more.

These things exist elsewhere, in Singapore and in the West. There are electric cars. There is Uber, and Grab. Government agencies in other countries sometimes have their own websites and apps performing the same function. Most tickets for transport are purchased online nowadays.

But I think the extent is very different and creates totally new phenomenons. Because everyone in China uses the apps, the behaviours of small businesses like nail salons and restaurants have changed. They start offering insane promotion packages via the apps. And so if you don't play the game, you're kinda disadvantaged because you pay more for the same thing.

And because China is so full of scams and shoddy products, it's wise to do research beforehand. Google doesn't work there, and Baidu doesn't have anywhere near the kind of credibility that Google has. I don't think the Chinese use Baidu much. They'd rather search articles on Wechat or use the Little Red Book app. The Little Red Book is interesting because it's a social media platform where people post about their personal experiences, especially with products and services. They've done a good job of curation and you mostly find genuine posts about where to go and what to eat. It's probably immune to AI competition since I think AI content is probably pretty obvious to their engine, which depends more on likes and engagement.

In case you haven't noticed, the open Internet is dead here. Everything is on an owned app platform, which also makes it easy for censorship.

If Google continues to suck, then maybe people will do their searches on Tiktok instead. Google supposedly indexes the open Internet, so this moves towards a even more closed internet.

I say in the title that China is the future, but I also just feel that technology in our lives has somewhat peaked. Some things in China never took off in other countries. For example, in China, it's common to find a machine that rents out power banks by the minute or hour. But it's dependent on the user already having one of the popular apps, scanning the QR code, and paying the deposit. I suppose in other countries, the operator would have to get the customer to download their own app, which adds to the hassle. There is a lack of centralisation as compared to China. I haven't seen many in Singapore or other countries, so this is what I hypothesise.