Currently, internet players are unanimously embracing a new direction: becoming more profound and practical.

To encapsulate this shift, "focusing" is the most apt term. As internet players increasingly "focus," it underscores the failure of previous models centered on boundary expansion and platform dominance, as well as the troubles plaguing models emphasizing scale and efficiency.

Yet, amidst this backdrop, Alipay remains engrossed in platforms, enthusiastic about boundless expansion, and fascinated by scale.

Ultimately, Alipay endeavors to create an even grander dream, with payments serving as the entry point.

As FinTech increasingly intertwines with people's daily lives, especially with the trend of financial internetization deepening the connection between finance and individuals, using FinTech as a springboard to envision a more imaginative new frontier is indeed the new direction for players led by Alipay.

However, if Alipay deviates from the essence of FinTech, particularly from its core identity as a mobile payment platform, its strategy of leveraging the platform model and scale effects to unlock new growth may encounter mounting difficulties and challenges.

As WeChat Pay and JD Pay seek to deeply integrate with the industrial end, and as mobile payment transitions from front-end transactions to backend industrial empowerment, Alipay's "grandiose dream" may only exacerbate its dilemmas.

If nothing changes, Alipay will not only lose its previous advantages but also miss out on the next wave of payment innovation.

I

Once the competition for mobile payment traffic concluded, Alipay cemented its position in the market, supported by Alibaba's vast ecosystem.

It's no exaggeration to say that Alipay reigns supreme in the mobile payment arena.

Ultimately, one pivotal reason for Alipay's dominance is the transformation in payment methods brought about by the mobile internet era.

The burgeoning demand for mobile payments flooded Alipay with traffic, and Alibaba's extensive ecosystem provided a continuous stream of users.

This is precisely why Alipay occupies such a favorable position in the mobile payment landscape.

Ultimately, Alipay's success is a concentrated expression of the mobile internet era's business model.

However, with the entry of competitors like WeChat Pay, JD Pay, and later Meituan Pay and Douyin Pay, especially with the dismantling of payment barriers due to interconnectivity, Alipay's original traffic-driven development model is encountering increasing challenges.

For Alipay, ensuring its size, especially maintaining its market position, has become a pressing issue.

Against this backdrop, Alipay has abandoned the development model centered solely on "payments" and instead maintains its size by building platforms, integrating content, and compounding functions.

Admittedly, this approach has had some success in preserving Alipay's size.

However, if Alipay relies solely on this strategy, without recognizing the new changes in payments, especially the FinTech transformations behind them, and merely uses traffic to sustain its growth or resist external competition, it will only succumb to traffic anxiety.

The continuous addition of features on Alipay, the heavy investment in content communities, and the repeated failures in social networking attempts are all direct manifestations of this phenomenon.

It is evident that if Alipay merely tries to resist the waning traffic era by expanding its size, it will only revisit the "grandiose dream" of the mobile internet era that once made it a mobile payment leader.

II

While an obsession with traffic keeps Alipay afloat in the "grandiose dream" of the mobile internet era, the neglect of digital-physical integration, stemming from FinTech's shift from the consumer end (C-end) to the business end (B-end), plunges Alipay into a new "grandiose dream".

In fact, a remarkable transformation is underway among major internet players.

If we analyze this new trend, it's clear that shifting focus from the C-end market and platform-building to delving into the real economy and industries to find new growth avenues is a significant aspect.

Both Tencent's omni-reality internet and JD's supply chain FinTech exemplify this shift.

Ultimately, for players like Alipay, WeChat Pay, and JD Pay, their goals must shift more towards the upstream industrial end. Only through deep integration with the industrial end can they truly achieve financial empowerment and support for the real economy.

From both financial and technological perspectives, FinTech players, epitomized by mobile payments, should shift their target audience from the C-end to the B-end and from digital-physical separation to integration.

However, amidst this shift, Alipay remains obsessed with pursuing C-end traffic, persistent in building a large platform, and neglectful of the digital-physical integration trend.

It goes without saying that Alipay continually experiments with C-end-centric functions and applications. Its content creation and social networking attempts are direct manifestations of this.

Furthermore, Alipay lacks exploration in digital-physical integration.

As Tencent and JD seek new modes of digital-physical integration through mobile payment's connections with the real economy, Alipay still defines itself as a mere platform and center, ignoring the integration trend and failing to find ways to unlock new opportunities in the B-end market through digital-physical integration.

From this perspective, Alipay still resides in a pre-digital-physical integration era, has yet to discover methods to empower the real economy, and has not found the correct path to integrate with it.

When Alipay overlooks the broader context of digital-physical integration, particularly the reality that finance can only play a greater role by returning to and empowering the real economy, it falls into a new "grandiose dream".

III

As the AI trend gains momentum, particularly with the gradual clarification of traffic division, more players are diving into the AI wave.

It's not an exaggeration to say that grasping the new AI wave is akin to securing a ticket to the next ship.

Against this backdrop, we see Tencent fully embracing deepseek, Alibaba investing heavily in AI, and ByteDance laying the groundwork in AI. Ultimately, they all aim to stay relevant by embracing AI.

Alipay has also conducted AI-related experiments, such as launching an AI smart assistant during the European Championship.

However, a deep dive into Alipay's AI experiments reveals that its underlying goal is still traffic acquisition.

Ultimately, Alipay views AI merely as a tool to enhance C-end user engagement and retention.

Yet, this approach contradicts the broader direction of AI development.

The underlying logic of internet players embracing AI lies in using it to transform and optimize themselves, thereby reforming their products and services to meet new C-end user needs.

Simply put, the correct approach for internet players to integrate with AI should be through innovative new supply methods, rather than directly using AI to acquire C-end traffic and increase user engagement.

If AI is solely viewed as a means to acquire traffic and increase engagement, rather than a means for self-transformation, then current AI applications are not fundamentally different from existing C-end-focused entities. When the AI hype fades, everything will revert to square one.

Therefore, if we summarize Alipay's AI strategy, it's merely using AI to acquire and activate traffic, without seeking ways to leverage AI to enhance its products and services, particularly without truly using AI to achieve supply-side reform. Consequently, Alipay is merely using AI to perpetuate a "grandiose dream" centered on traffic.

When the AI hype subsides, Alipay will inevitably revert to its traffic-centric path.

Conclusion

Alipay is indulging in a "grandiose dream," where the protagonists are still elements from the internet era.

Ultimately, Alipay aims to maintain its mobile internet era market position, continue its mobile internet era practices, and alleviate the profound changes occurring in the mobile payment industry through this approach.

Perhaps Alipay's approach has been flawed from the start.

The reason is that competition in the current mobile payment market is no longer traditional. It operates within a new context and logic.

When Alipay's "grandiose dream" awakens, the mobile payment market and its competitors may no longer be the same.