Comment by rootsudo
1 year ago
It also goes bothends, there were numerous western messaging apps that come and go, wechat has been around since the AIM and blackberry messenger PIN days. Where are those two protocols/messsaging apps now?
It isn't insular, it's just it was the only local solution - same for Line having a lock on Japan and Thailand but not much of asia, and kakaotalk for Korea.
Wechat hasn't really been super popular since AIM days. ~15 years ago when I was in China I don't think it even existed, and 10 years ago there was significant numbers of people using qq still instead of WeChat (or rather not in addition to? Lot of people still use both).
I don't think it overtook qq until like 8 yrs ago? At which point AIM was already discontinued, and 10 years past any kind of popularity.