WeChat is getting more and more powerful, but these functions are getting worse and worse

After the WeChat subscription account revamped its "information flow", many netizens believed that this was a functional regression and expressed their intention to "unfollow" the account. On major community platforms such as Zhihu and Douban, there were also many heated debates about "which WeChat functions are no longer available".

Even popular features such as mini-programs and search engines that were once popular are on the list. Some veteran WeChat players even feel that many new features on WeChat are becoming increasingly divorced from actual user usage, and that they are taking advantage of the number of registered users to consolidate their position as a social platform and seize market share from other giants.

So, as the most commonly used instant messaging application in daily life, how many functions of WeChat are becoming increasingly useless? Let the readers talk about it together.

Once a "hero", now a "chicken rib"

“Now when we talk about useless functions, how can we not mention Shake function? ”

Zhang Lipei, an old user who has been using WeChat since 2011, told us that he was still a college student when he first came into contact with WeChat. The function that impressed him the most was naturally the "Shake" function that was launched very early.

As a "homebody", he used this early function to meet many friends from all over the country who were shaking their phones at the same time. Many of his classmates, influenced by him, also started using WeChat and using the "shake" function to "pick up girls" remotely.

"There are many people around me who use WeChat just because of this function." In Zhang Lipei's opinion, the early Shake function did make great contributions to expanding the number of WeChat users. However, although the "Shake" function is still retained after WeChat has undergone many version iterations, the quality of users who use this function is far worse than before.

"Nowadays, most of the people who come out when you shake the phone are probably micro-businessmen." He said that the "shake" function has become a base for advertising since about two or three years ago. Most of the so-called "friends" that can be shaken out through this function are just there to sell goods and promote products.

As for the "drift bottle" function, which can also be called a "hero" of WeChat, it seems that it cannot escape the fate of being gradually abandoned by users.

R&D engineer He Tao told us that the earliest "drift bottle" function brought back the feeling of writing letters and making pen pals in his childhood.

"I'm very introverted in real life, but in the message in a bottle, I'm a chatterbox." He said that he once recorded the pressure in life and work in the "drift bottle", and often received comfort from many strangers. Even his current wife was won over by using the "drift bottle".

However, recently, when he reopened the "drift bottle" function that he had not used for a long time and tried to find old memories, he found that most of the drift bottles he could "pick up" contained impure content and were filled with a lot of pornographic and ambiguous information.

"If there wasn't a bottle, I would have thought it was Momo just by looking at the conversation." He Tao said jokingly.

But for Chris, the most impressive feature is "People Nearby". She used this feature to attract hundreds of customers to her coffee shop in just one afternoon and made many friends.

"But now, I want to attract customers, and others also want to attract business." She told us that when you open the "People Nearby" app in Huaqiang South, Shenzhen, you will see either businesses selling mobile phones in Huaqiang North or real estate agencies renting out properties near Akao. "Now the ads in People Nearby are more popular than Shake and Drift Bottle."

It can be said that shake, drift bottle and nearby people have laid the foundation for WeChat as a social platform when they were launched. In addition to the instant messaging function, you can also randomly add strangers and even "encounter" and become WeChat friends.

However, these once popular social functions have fallen due to the proliferation of advertisements and have become the most useless functions on users' mobile phones.

Nowadays, when you open the WeChat Discovery column, you can still see the buttons of these three functions below the entrance to the Moments, but how many people are willing to open them?

This feature seems to be very thoughtful, but it actually damages the user experience

WeChat has more and more functions, and the user operability is getting higher and higher. However, there are many functions that seem to lack logic in design, and some of the function settings are even ridiculous. On Zhihu, many netizens voted that the "stupidest" function is the "Like" notification in Moments.

"Sometimes I like a post for a friend, and then when other friends like their posts, they also notify me." Zhang Chupei, who works at a vocational training institution, told us that parents often send him private messages asking him to help them like their friends' posts so that they can participate in various activities.

For the sake of face, he had to help the other party to like the post. However, when other parents who added him as a friend also helped to like the post, messages of others' likes or comments and replies would pop up from time to time in the circle of friends.

“Unless you turn off the Moments reminder, the friends who just liked the post for this parent will always be displayed.” Zhang Chupei said that sometimes you have to turn off the Moments reminder, or swipe left one by one to turn them off, and switching settings back and forth is very cumbersome.

"Honestly, what does it have to do with me if someone likes my post? Why do they keep notifying me?"

Following the like notification function is the message recall function. This is a new feature added by WeChat in recent years. This function allows users to "regret" and gives users a chance to make amends when they say the wrong thing, type the wrong thing, or send the wrong file.

"But why does the message always show a message after the message is withdrawn?" The WeChat message withdrawal function has brought Li Shihan a lot of convenience, but it has also brought him a lot of trouble. Sometimes when I see a message from a friend and then get prompted to withdraw it, I get curious. I wonder what the other person said that shouldn't have been said.

Especially when she quarreled with her boyfriend, she would be more suspicious if she saw that he had withdrawn a message on WeChat. When she sometimes withdrew a message due to a typo, her friends would also ask her about the reason. Sometimes she said that she withdrew the message just because of a typo, but no one believed her.

"Everyone is curious, and sometimes the withdrawn content can arouse the other party's interest." Li Shihan told us that it is undeniable that the information withdrawal function is quite practical, but she and many of her friends believe that the details of the prompt can be optimized and the withdrawn information should not be displayed to avoid causing unnecessary trouble.

In addition, she also thinks that the WeChat friend deletion function is ridiculous. Sometimes she deletes a friend who keeps sending advertisements or has not been in contact for a long time, but she does not disappear from the friend list.

"It's so embarrassing when people add me back and ask why I was deleted." Li Shihan believes that this function should not be a difficult technical problem to solve, but rather a lack of consideration by the product manager when designing the interaction.

As the most commonly used chat software, WeChat has gone through many versions of upgrades, but these ridiculous features still exist. Sometimes, although these features do not affect users' daily use, they can greatly reduce the experience.

Compared with the increasing number of functions, WeChat seems to need to put more effort into optimizing details and user needs. After all, socializing and chatting are the original essence of WeChat.

The more WeChat features there are, the purer the users want.

"From the beginning to now, the space occupied by WeChat installations has become larger and larger."

In addition to being an old WeChat user, Hao Jia also has another identity - the marketing director of a WeChat mini-program development agency in Shenzhen. She told us that she can't do without WeChat whether she is communicating with colleagues at work, keeping in touch with family members, or even negotiating business with clients.

For her, WeChat is a very direct chat tool, just like a phone call. Although the agency she founded is engaged in the development of WeChat mini-programs, except for helping customers with functional testing, she does not often use mini-programs, and even rarely plays mini-games.

"Sometimes when I'm busy, I'm too lazy to check WeChat official accounts (subscription accounts), let alone mini-apps, and I don't care about missing out on any content." Hao Jia said that this doesn't mean that the features launched by WeChat are no longer useful, but that many value-added features other than chat and social networking are not often used. "I spend five to six hours a day on WeChat at work, but the most used functions are still the most basic ones such as chat, red envelopes and transfers."

Li Yu, a project specialist who also needs to use WeChat every day to communicate with Party A, also told us that although WeChat has many functions, at least 80% of them are something she has never used.

In addition to chat, emojis and Moments, the most used function is "Search", but the frequency of use is only once or twice a week, to search for some push materials related to the project in charge. As for the information flow function such as "Look", it has long been replaced by other information applications on the phone.

"I feel that WeChat is becoming more and more powerful, but my habits of using its functions have not changed at all." She said that although she spends the most time on WeChat every day, its many functions, including games, information flow, search, and shopping, cannot replace the independent applications with corresponding functions in the mobile phone.

“WeChat is becoming more and more like a pure chat and social tool.”

[Conclusion]

Due to its convenient registration and simple use, WeChat has gradually replaced QQ and become one of the must-have applications for every user's mobile phone. However, in order to develop the market of more than 800 million monthly active users worldwide, WeChat's functions have gradually become more diverse.

Perhaps in Tencent's view, WeChat has become a traffic portal for expanding its other value-added services. But for most users, WeChat is still just a pure communication software.

Any function that deviates from this foundation will likely become a short-lived flash in the pan after user interest fades, and become a decoration that takes up space on the phone.