It's interesting that they say there's "nothing like it in the rest of the world" while KakaoTalk has incredible usage numbers in Korea, with a similar number of capabilities. You can do banking, ride hailing, messaging, and even more... plus the characters from stickers/emoji are cultural icons in and of themselves.
I think you're referring to where I quoted Ben Thompson, but he was speaking in a specific sense: that there it nothing like WeChat in the sense of being an OS for an entire nation (not simply being a super app). More context around the quote is here: https://stratechery.com/2017/apples-china-problem/
The quote is indeed a bit dated though, I'll grant that -- is KakaoTalk that dominant in SK now?
