If you speak neither Mandarin nor Russian and live in the US,

You can use WeChat to score some qt Chinese ladies. Other than that, there's no need for those services in the West. We mainly use Facebook (Messenger) and WhatsApp.
I haven't used Weibo or VK, but I like WeChat compared to WhatsApp. The settings in WhatsApp are messy IMO. I guess the other services are comparable to 'our' services.

>>57611780
>score some qt Chinese ladies
That's a pretty good reason.

How is the WeChat app on Android? Is it a memory, battery hog? I'm assuming its pretty aggressive with the permissions it wants.

>>57612755
I was talking about the Android app. I don't remember it being a battery hog or abuses permission. Obviously, it has some background services running, but most chat apps do that.
>That's a pretty good reason.
As a bonus: there's a feature to check out the profiles of other WeChat users near you.

>>57612838
>As a bonus: there's a feature to check out the profiles of other WeChat users near you.
I wonder if this feature would come in handy around LA.

I use Weibo. It's simple to use without speaking Chinese but it's also easy to learn the basics of Mandarin.

>>57611780

The main problem about using these applications outside of China and Russia is the geological, cultural and technical barriers and level of integration that make these applications better than their western counterpart. For Wechat, you can do a ton more stuff with it in China like actual banking with money transfer between people and businesses.

In all seriousness, unless you have friends or family you simply can not communicate with on any other platform in regards to your ethnicity or you speak the language well enough to use it, then you should consider using it.

Otherwise, you might as well use what is already popular in the West since you get the largest population base to work with naturally.

Overall however, using mobile applications to communicate with others is horrible unless you are forced to since every single platform wants to lock you down and use you as the product to make money.

IRC is still indisputably the king of instant internet communication.

>>57612891
See for yourself.