I should know more about this stuff because I've been working closely with tencent for the past five years, but I must admit that foreign users are an exceptionally low priority.
A few more thoughts:
1. The only advantage foreign wx accounts have over PRC accounts is the ability to view a handful of foreign official accounts, which falls into the "whoopty do" category
2. PRC accounts may be required for features like payment and WiFi, but this is something you should research in more focused forums, like thebeijinger (while it's true that most of us are heavy wx users, we typically only set things up once or twice)
3. Getting (and registering) a SIM is much more of a pita now than it was in years' past, but consider the following:
-many WiFi networks only send registration codes to local numbers
-didi, mobike, elema, etc require local numbers
-there are now ridiculously cheap plans available; I think I pay y20 per month, and simply buy minutes/data using WeChat Pay
Last edited by moondog; Jul 6, 2019 at 10:27 am