[tobinfekkes]

I loved Twilio many years ago, but they've become the new Google/SendGrid/Shopify/Stripe/Uber/(soon to add CloudFlare).

They retain the right to any/all the upside of any risk/scale, and you retain the obligation in any downside. No questions.

It's despicable.

[rsync]

"I loved Twilio many years ago ..."

I did as well.

In fact, I built my own little personal telco around their services and API.

It is all slowly falling apart, however, as their failure to build out their infrastructure offerings (as opposed to their "customer engagement" offerings) and the regulatory SNAFUs[1][2] that are emerging as a result of their behavior erode all of my use-cases ...

All I wanted was more, and more useful, twiml verbs ... instead I got "customer engagement workflows".

[1] https://twitter.com/rsyncnet/status/1593384850073214976

[2] 10DLC A2P makes personal/hobbyist Twilio usage basically impossible (although mine continue to work ...)

[a2tech]

Their support for registering 800 numbers and verifying your identity is absolute 100% trash. I've filled out their verify form many times, every time to be prompted to do it all over again months later. Over and over again.

I was a HUGE Twilio booster back in the day. I encouraged its use heavily in my very large org because it was so much better than our entrenched phone provider. I was (maybe still am) featured on their website. But things have just gotten more..business-y, less developer focused, just..generally worse.

I don't know what to do with these guys anymore. I understand they're trying to grapple with the mess of regulations that got dumped on them, but their messaging and support around all this is BAD. There's no answers, just walls of canned text.

[johndhi]

Confused, I don't see what's in common with all of the companies in your list.

I work with Twilio a lot and kind of agree with your last sentence but what do you mean? Are these normal business practices?

[bombcar]

They start out insanely great when riding high on VC cash, but over time they become the gorilla in the room and their service and support and quality begins to diminish until they're more annoying than they are helpful.

[tobinfekkes]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

There's a very obvious pattern on the spectrum of | Asset -> Liability |, and sadly, time proves they're much closer to a liability than an asset.

Over time, tech becomes a tax.

[bee_rider]

It is surprising that our VC based companies haven’t been hit with anti-dumping sanctions. I guess if there are enough extra steps…

[tobinfekkes]

Unfortunately, a cursory glance at the tech landscape betrays that these are "normal" business practices.

Or, more accurately, that they have become normal, rather than being objectively normal.

[mxuribe]

Same here! So, i wonder then, who would be a viable alternative to Twilio?

[startledmarmot]

Hey! I'd naturally recommend SignalWire (as one of the founders over there.)

We have a full messaging + voice + video APIs, including a Twilio-compatible API just for people who need to switch. We're backed by companies like Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile, and Samsung so we know how to make telecom infra!

https://signalwire.com/products/cloud-messaging

We're also the folks behind the open-source FreeSWITCH framework that powers companies like Bandwidth, Five9, Dialpad, Zoom Voice... maybe even your own company's PBX!

https://freeswitch.com

[robbiep]

How are you preventing the type of attack that is being described here?

Thanks

[rsync]

Million dollar question:

Do you have a god-damned email verb for twiml ?

I mean, seriously. Twilio could allow (verified-ownership emails only) for the simplest possible email integration into twiml for the sole purpose of alerting and paging, etc.

No spam possible since it's only verified account-controlled emails. Basically sending email to yourself from within twiml.

But no. Instead they bought sendgrid and email integration is a complete abomination of a two-company, two platform, two accounts workflow that is fragile and fails all the time.

So ... do you ?

[tobinfekkes]

Unfortunately, I haven't found any. There are some hacky solutions that I've bookmarked over the years, but nothing reliable enough for a production service(s). At least that I've found.

Most "alternative" SMS services a simply a façade built on top of Twilio, with the markup to prove it.

[STELLANOVA]

There are some alternatives for example:

https://wavecell.com/sms/

While they are mostly known in Asia but they offer service in Europe/North America as well.

[tobinfekkes]

Thank you for sharing. Haven't heard of this before.

[jpeg_hero]

i've used these guys: Thinq and they are awesome for sms / messaging apis

https://www.thinq.com/sms-mms-text-messaging/

[doodlesdev]

> SendGrid

Just FYI SendGrid is a Twilio product LOL, so I guess you are right.