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author: zhu changjun

media commentator

recently, taobao and tmall announced that they would add wechat payment function. on the same day, meituan’s two core businesses, food delivery and hotel, officially entered the alipay mini program, and the group purchase business will also be launched soon. the negotiation of taobao and tmall’s access to wechat payment started half a year ago, and was initiated by taobao.

as early as march this year, alibaba's collaborative office software dingtalk announced that it had added an important update to the latest version, allowing wechat users to directly join dingtalk meetings without having to download and open the dingtalk client separately. at the time, this move was called another "wall-breaking" between alibaba and tencent. subsequently, the "wechat scan code payment" option appeared on taobao's payment page, and it quickly became a hot topic on the same day. however, the wechat payment function was only gradually opened to some users at the time; the public announcement on september 4 meant that payment interoperability had been fully covered.

the mutual blocking between taobao and wechat began 11 years ago. at that time, the various businesses of the two companies competed with each other, and also expanded the battlefield through strategic investment and mergers and acquisitions, resulting in the two major camps of "ali" and "tencent", and they were in a state of confrontation in almost every field. in 2021, the ministry of industry and information technology focused on requiring internet companies to rectify issues such as blocking url links. until the end of august 2024, the state administration for market regulation issued a statement saying that alibaba had fully stopped the "two-choice" monopoly behavior as required, and "the compliance rectification work has achieved good results." in addition, since last year, tencent and bytedance have also fully resumed business cooperation, and both have placed advertisements on each other's platforms.

the payment interconnection between alibaba and tencent has finally enabled china's largest internet platforms to achieve true interconnection, basically saying goodbye to the state of buying and building closed systems to curb the confrontation between opponents, and finally choosing the most effective way of cooperation. this is due to the influence of supervision, and it is also the inevitable result of the cruel market.

previously, when shopping on some online platforms, payment methods were restricted, which has long been a major "pain point" faced by many consumers. now, taobao, one of the leading e-commerce platforms, has officially opened up to wechat pay, the most frequently used electronic payment method, which is undoubtedly a landmark step in solving this "pain point".

this move not only directly facilitates consumers, but also represents a further step forward in the "interconnection and interoperability" of the internet.

now, the one-step transition to direct use of wechat payment shows that the process of opening up is accelerating. although this change in pace seems to be just a "concession" made by a certain platform, it is also a subtle reflection of the changes in the ecology of china's internet industry in recent years.

as we all know, there are complex considerations of interests behind which payment methods and external links the internet platform can share. for example, it may involve the protection of data resources, competition for users and traffic, etc. although this is a commercial behavior, it is not wrong. but objectively, this practice of setting up "moats" for each other does bring some adverse effects to the user experience. at the same time, it seems to be somewhat inconsistent with the open spirit of the internet.

of course, more importantly, as the internet has become a social infrastructure, this "fragmented" state is increasingly in conflict with some of the public attributes it has been given. coupled with the "anti-monopoly" policy and governance background of the internet in recent years, the interconnection, openness and sharing among large platforms can be said to be increasingly becoming a mainstream trend.

a landmark governance action in this regard is that in september 2021, the ministry of industry and information technology explicitly required all platforms to lift the blocking of url links within a time limit. in other words, the platforms must be able to share network links, and the practice of some url links not being shared and opened across platforms has been stopped. since then, major domestic internet platforms have responded one after another.

from the actual actions, more than two years have passed, and cross-platform sharing of url links has indeed become more and more convenient. taobao's opening of the door to wechat pay can be seen as a follow-up of the big platform to this "interconnection" requirement, and it does not rule out the possibility of triggering greater actions on interconnection and interoperability on other platforms in the future.

however, it is obviously inaccurate to simply regard this move as a response to the policy. in fact, due to many practical reasons, the internet "anti-monopoly" topic and the "interconnection" governance actions have obviously cooled down in the past two years.

in this context, some platforms’ promotion of openness and sharing is more likely to be based on conscious adjustments made to the realities they face.

taking the development of internet e-commerce as an example, there have indeed been obvious changes in the past two years.

on the one hand, with the overall social consumption yet to be boosted, e-commerce development is facing greater pressure.a detail that is of great reference value is that the atmosphere of "double 11" has cooled down significantly in recent years. statistics from a third-party agency show that the comprehensive e-commerce sales of "double 11" have declined for two consecutive years.

on the other hand, "traditional" e-commerce platforms such as taobao are facing challenges from short video platforms such as douyin, and their "opponents" are also changing.these new situations and reshuffles in the industry landscape naturally mean that each platform must come up with new business strategies.

of course, the opening of the payment system is only part of this strategic adjustment. for example, at the end of last year, taobao and jd.com successively announced new platform dispute handling rules and after-sales service management rules. one of the important measures is to make it clear that consumers can apply for a refund without returning the goods, that is, a "refund only" application.

this was unimaginable in the past, but "the situation is stronger than people", the industry environment has changed, and some operations and considerations that seemed "taken for granted" in the past must be re-selected. the essential driving force is nothing more than to better adapt to the new competitive needs and further "please" consumers in order to win users and traffic.

from being driven mainly by policies in the past few years to being driven more by interests at present, the change in the trajectory of china's internet "interconnection" is actually conveying a common sense, that is,to maintain the healthy development of the market, we can trust more in the self-regulating ability of market forces and follow the market's own development rhythm.

especially today when we are focusing on "competing in the economy" and need to stimulate market vitality and boost market confidence, we must pay more attention to balancing the relationship between "better playing the decisive role of the market in resource allocation" and "better playing the role of the government."

this article is an original article specially commissioned by the phoenix news commentary department and only represents the author's views.

editor-in-chief | xiao yi