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Comment by pierre | Hacker News Reader

It is now time to take all the innovations that have been happening in china around WeChat/WeiXin and to implement them into messenger. This time it's the other way around, we are actually going to copy the Chinese (they have had an API addressable messaging platform way before us and are ahead of us in the exploration of what work / is possible) :

- this may disrupt Local business/shop relation to client. (see how weixin is used by small online shop)

- this may disrupt insurance (see how zhongan is selling micro-insurance through weixin)

- this may disrupt paypal, as soon as you can send 'money' over a messaging app.

- this may disrupt movie / theater ticket selling ... (there is tones of other example)

There is a lot of land to grab, the working use cases are already known (we get 5 year of china market data). I hope I had a couple of millions to invest in this market.

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> - this may disrupt paypal, as soon as you can send 'money' over a messaging app.

American banking is so backwards and this will only make it worse.

In Australia and New Zealand, no bank offers you checks. Do I own you $50? Well give me your BSB and account number. I type it into my phone app or web browser, type $50 and click send. It shows up tomorrow morning. Works on weekends, holidays, ANZAC day, New Years Day and no fees. $0. Person-to-person transfers are free, move in 24 hours and your account number doesn't need to be private.

I came back to America back to the world of three business days for an electronic ACH payment to clear (if you're lucky)!! WTF?! Our banking system is in the 1990s because PayPal, Square and now Facebook will lobby to keep their business models.

Fuck. That. Shit. Money should move through the banking system using standards, not via Facebook with their proprietary PayPal like garbage.

I don't think the average kiwi has seen a cheque in decades. After 10 years of living in the US I have started to rejoice in how despite being one of the most technologically advanced nations on earth the US still clings to things like paper cheques, $0.01/$0.05/$0.10 coins, US customary units, and a plumbing system that requires most houses to own a plunger. Perhaps it's a sign of assimilation?

> and a plumbing system that requires most houses to own a plunger.

Getting off topic for the article at hand, but what's different in Australian plumbing in that area?

https://youtu.be/ryIQYYogQ8A

I've literally never owned a plunger in my whole life, and I don't know anybody who does. It baffles me everything I'm in the US and every toilet has a plunger!

Why wouldn't these be the default in all new construction everywhere? Are there downsides?

Not that I'm aware of. Lived in NZ for 5 years and just moved into a brand new construction in CA just a few months back. Terrible. I've had to plunge(technically I use the scrubber to generate the pressure) a few times already :(

Also, the showers mostly all have baskets under the drain caps to capture hair and stuff now.

I searched Lowes website and could not find any toilets like this. There has to be some reason!

I don't think any toilet built here in Finland since at least the 50's (some of those still exist, earlier I'm not sure of) have needed a plunger either, those things just work. The US plunger thing just baffles me. And banking too, sure.

I can only speak for New Zealand, but the whole disposal method is fundamentally different. Instead of relying upon the swirling/draining motion to dispose of the waste, water is forced straight down into the much larger gap. Every kiwi/aussie who has stayed with me (in multiple homes) has complained about US toilets!

You forgot to mention the option of half flush or full flush.

Some newer toilets in the US will have this, but it's not nearly as common as it is in AU. I figure it's because of differing attitudes on water conservation.

> Instead of relying upon the swirling/draining motion to dispose of the waste

It makes me sad and annoyed whenever I flush one of these toilets. The swirling doesn't do anything useful. It seems to actually increase the clogging probability because it typically manages to swirl 100% of the toilet paper together and then finally move it downward all at once for maximum clogging effect, which might be fine if the drain weren't ~2 inches across.

There are American toilets that aren't like this, but a shocking number of them are completely unreliable. I had a toilet in my apartment in California that, no lie, I managed to clog by blowing my nose. I used 3 Kleenex, dropped them in the toilet, and flushed. It clogged from that.

OK, explain the plunger comment please?

Nearly every home I have ever been into in the US owns a plunger due to poor performance of US toilets. Every kiwi who has stayed with me has had issues. I think the biggest proof of how useless they are is the fact that if you go to Home Depot and browse their toilets you will see the "flush performance" heavily featured in the marketing. As far as I can tell it's due to how the waste is disposed of (relying upon a draining/swirling motion rather than forcing water straight down) and the size of the outlet. I actually had the lower level of a house destroyed by a toilet that was blocked and overflowed. It just doesn't happen back in New Zealand!

The UK has the same but instant (technically 2 hours, but I've never seen it take that long) up to £100,000, works 24/7, free for personal (and v cheap for business - usually 30p up to 100k, or cheaper for start up business accounts).

Next day would seem as backwards as US ACH to us now :).

At least ACH is slowly working towards being faster. In less than 2 years, next business day ACH should be pretty universal. In about 6 months, some ACH transactions will clear the following morning.

Meanwhile the UK has had instant transfers since 2008. That's about two years after I last wrote a cheque.

It's been within 2 hours for the past 3 years in New Zealand (govt requirement).

Btw., being from the Czech Republic, I have never used a cheque in my not-so-short life. The bank transfers take here from 0 seconds (within the same bank, costs 0 in my case), through a few hours/usually (within CZ, costs 0) to around two days (within EU, costs 0.7€). Paypal is used here because of the ease to pay abroad and competes with Visa/Mastercard mainly.

> Our banking system is in the 1990s because PayPal, Square and now Facebook will lobby to keep their business models.

I find it thoroughly unbelievable that banks are trying to offer advanced, consumer-friendly features, only to be thwarted by the lobbying efforts of the technology industry. Don't get me wrong: technology companies are not morally superior and above political manipulation, but they would most certainly lose going head-to-head with the banking industry.

The banking system is stuck in the 1990s because banks have insufficient incentive to change, and there is a non-trivial segment of the population lacking knowledge of, access to, or trust in technology when it comes to financial matters.

can you elaborate more on zhongan and micro-insurance? thanks! is it basically just chatting with an agent over weixin instead of chatting face-to-face or over the phone?

Peter Thiel called China "copiers."

This turned around fast.

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