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internet giants are interconnected and have passed an important milestone. following the announcement of plans to add wechat payment capabilities the day before, taobao further clarified the timetable on september 5: it will be gradually opened to all taobao sellers in seven days. the adjustment will take effect on september 12, 2024.

taobao's actions received a warm response from related parties. wechat pay, the direct beneficiary, said that the function adaptation with taobao platform merchants is being launched. alipay, which seems to be the "biggest victim", has a generous attitude. this taobao brother company said that openness, collaboration, innovation and sharing are the basic spirit of the internet and the general trend of industry development.

at this point, the internet's "wall removal" began to touch core interests and touch the depths of the soul. starting from the 2021 ministry of industry and information technology's "administrative guidance meeting on blocking url links" and focusing on the trends of major companies, it took a full three years.

tearing down walls has evolved from a policy requirement to a corporate action, which continues to affect interests.

there are also different levels of touching interests. some are superficial, such as wechat and taobao removing the blocking of external links; some are moderate and require courage, such as douyin live broadcast of honor of kings (tencent's ace game); and some are like the now widely-watched taobao integration with wechat pay, which is a deep-level wall-breaking, touching core interests and the depths of the soul.

on a superficial level, it is the removal of the wall of traffic. removing the blocking of external links is aimed at the daily troubles of users. although large companies block each other for more than ten years or as short as two or three years, and public opinion wars often break out. however, this kind of wall has no direct connection with operational benefits and is mostly the product of malicious competition.

the next step is to tear down the business walls with courage and determination. when taobao tmall merchant ads appeared in wechat moments, tencent video and douyin reached a copyright secondary creation agreement, and douyin provided unprecedented support for live broadcasts of king of glory... the cooperation between giants across the boundaries of competition is to practice the business value of interconnection with a win-win mentality: i get users and revenue, and you earn advertising fees...

all these cooperations were unimaginable in the era of fierce competition among giants. the reason why they are realized on a large scale is the proposition of the era of interconnection and interoperability, which is more in line with the redefinition of the boundaries of competition. for example, the live broadcast of king of glory on douyin must be placed in the context of the contraction of the game business of bytedance (douyin's parent company) and the substantial differentiation of competition between douyin and wechat.

the reason why payment is regarded as an important checkpoint for tearing down walls and touching the soul is that payment is the core of the core business of large companies. it is the "blood circulation" that large companies use to convert their own traffic into wealth, and it is the digital "water, electricity and coal" that large companies use to use external traffic for their own purposes.

it is not only core, but also vital: the payment runs on the currency symbol 1234, as well as the vital user information, vital business trends, and vital data security... after all, when fighting for the empire, payment is the toughest bone to chew for the giants. tencent's financial territory has to rely on wechat red envelopes to "single-handedly save the day", and alipay, which has been leading the way, has fought countless tough battles with banks and merchants.

so for taobao to connect to wechat pay, taobao’s heart must be big enough, wechat pay’s heart must be big enough, and alipay’s heart must be even bigger.

of course, there is still a long way to go for interconnection and interoperability. in the payment field alone, we are still concerned about: when will wechat and alipay be connected to offline barcode payment? when will jd.com be connected to alipay? can alipay and wechat realize personal free transfer? ...

beijing business daily commentator zhang xuwang