W22 - Notes: Split Cards & Pico

I recently activated the Fenfen Card on JD.com; its predecessor was Baitiao Flash Pay. It feels like they've pushed a Category II account to its limits. Both Baitiao Flash Pay and its upgraded Fenfen Card are built on Category II accounts linked to JD Baitiao, a credit asset, deliberately extending Baitiao beyond JD’s payment ecosystem. The difference is that Fenfen Card has greatly expanded its usage scenarios.

My Fenfen Card is a Category II account issued by Shanghai Bank. Once linked to WeChat, it can be used online instantly. Beyond consumer payments, it supports WeChat transfers, sending red envelopes, topping up WeChat balance, and even buying funds directly in WeChat’s licaitong. Keep in mind that behind the Fenfen Card is Baitiao, so there’s an irresistible urge to exploit it. Before testing that impulse I checked the Fenfen Card bill within Baitiao: even without installment plans, interest accrues daily—so my urge to game the system was misplaced. Overall, I’m surprised by how bold and imaginative Fenfen Card’s advances are. By leveraging the payment capability of a Category II account to expand into external ecosystem scenarios, it maximizes the revenue potential of its own assets.

We can also view this model as a way of managing accounts. If you abstract the account-management model into three elements—user, channel, and asset—then a business card corresponds to a jointly managed user with channel and asset off-platform. Fenfen Card corresponds to jointly managed user and asset, with both ends on-platform and the channel off-platform. Compared with the business card, Fenfen Card manages more and heavier responsibilities, and of course poses greater regulatory risk.

I recently picked up a Pico Neo3 for under 2000 yuan, mainly because the price caught my attention. A couple of years ago I bought a Neo2 for just under 5,000 yuan. Since then Pico has changed hands and the new owner has taken a very different approach.

From my experience, Neo3’s biggest changes are on the software side; the new owner’s strategy is clearly more internet-oriented. They added their own browser, strengthened the app store, and built an official content distribution platform, firmly controlling the distribution (and cash) gateway to the future. Current content is mainly games and video; the appeal lies in entertainment value—VR’s perspective consistently delivers novel experiences. In terms of addictiveness and polish it’s similar to the previous generation. But regardless of how rough current VR products are, I can sense huge potential gains in virtual experiences. In VR hardware, I think every industry deserves to be reimagined—retail, advertising, content, social, education, OTA, OA, and so on. What’s lacking now are users and capital. Following the smartphone adoption path, if Neo prices drop into the thousand-yuan range it could trigger a major explosion—and that moment is getting nearer. Maybe it’s time to look for VR development courses from beginner to advanced—can frontend engineers still catch up?