
Twitter kills off SMS notifications and posting in most countries - ikarandeep
https://www.dansdeals.com/more/site-announcements/twitter-kills-off-sms-notifications-posting-countries-deletes-sms-followers-without-providing-warning/
======
seancoleman
This reminds me of how I hacked twitter 10+ years ago to get free SMS delivery
for a web app I built. Before Twilio, custom SMS notification delivery was
hard and expensive.

At the time, twitter allowed you to receive SMS notifications of tweets posted
to a followed account. I created a private account and used twitter's API to
post tweets to with the notification content I wanted to send. I then had
"dummy" accounts follow the "notification" account. These dummy accounts had
recipient phone numbers with SMS notifications turned on.

The flow was: Web App -> Twitter API -> Tweet from "notification" account ->
followers received SMS notifications. Free SMS delivery!

It was clunky and SMS notifications looked like they came from twitter (they
did) but it solved my use case perfectly.

~~~
w1
Lol I may or may not currently be using a Twitter account and cron to
broadcast any changes to my (non-static) home ip address, encrypted, so I can
ssh into my workstation when I'm on vacation.

~~~
thirtyseven
Are dynamic DNS services no longer a thing?

~~~
amatecha
Yep, free dynamic DNS still exists, for example NoIP
[https://www.noip.com/](https://www.noip.com/) However, you have to refresh it
each month by filling out a "I'm still using it" web form they email you. So,
you can't just set it & forget it.

~~~
traden210
I use Namecheap, but other providers offer it as well: free dyndns service
with a domain - no monthly checkin required.

~~~
amatecha
Wait Namecheap has dyndns service as well? Nice, I shall check into this! I
have a few domains with them. Thanks :)

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meigwilym
There's some irony in that Twitter have moved on from the 140 character limit,
and now cutting off SMS. Both were core features of the platform when
initially launched, so that it coupled nicely with mobile/cell phones
(obviously in the pre smartphone era).

~~~
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
On the flip side, the experience is remarkably similar now to what it was a
decade ago. It’s materially the same, which is rare for unicorns of this time.

~~~
Dunedan
For me, an occasional reader without a Twitter account, the experience became
much worse in the past decade. That's because Twitter switched of RSS feeds
and when opening links to individual tweets nowadays there is this ubiquitous
"Something Went Wrong, Try Again" on first page load.

~~~
pests
If I'm not mistaken that "Something Went Wrong" is their web API keys being
throttled...

~~~
heleninboodler
If this happens to a client attempting to load a single page in isolation
(which it does, a lot), you are a failed web site. They may be a very
successful mobile _app_ , but as a website, they've failed miserably.

~~~
ikt
I get this a lot and just assumed it was because I'm using a VPN.

~~~
inapis
I get this a lot if i’n using a VPN or an ad blocker like pi-hole.

------
aaronlifshin
He writes: "Of course if that’s a major problem, then offering 2FA logins and
password verification via cell phone wouldn’t make much sense either."

But this is not necessarily true, as spoofing a source phone number of an SMS
is a lot easier than receiving an SMS that was sent to another number.

~~~
paxys
He also skips over the fact that 2FA means _second_ factor. Even if insecure
it's still better than nothing.

~~~
hombre_fatal
Only if 2FA doesn't open up customer support channels that defeat the point of
2FA, like the common "oops I lost my phone lol" channel attack that gives you
access to an account if you can provide the other factor.

(Still) works against Amazon btw: [https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-
customer-service-backd...](https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-
service-backdoor-be375b3428c4)

I'd say 2FA is often worse than 1FA because customer support systems are
rarely prepared to say "sorry, can't give you access to your account :/".
Because 99.9% of the time, it really is a user accidentally locked out of
their account.

~~~
tsimionescu
That has nothing to do with 2FA, has it? Having a recovery procedure that
escalates up tp direct phone contact is the norm with or without 2FA. This
system is probably older than the Internet, with banks operating on similar
principles (of course, it escalates up to physical presence there).

~~~
closeparen
If the recovery procedure requires only one factor, then “2FA” is a lie.

------
koverda
> I’d guess that this is a cost-cutting move, as it’s much cheaper to offer
> push notifications from their app than it is to send out SMS.

I'd have to second this guess. SMS is much more expensive than push
notifications.

~~~
paxys
In all such cases the cost of engineering/operations time to keep these
services alive overshadows pretty much everything else. So it's not cost per
SMS that they are worried about, but rather the time spent maintaining and
fixing these systems compared to how much they are used.

~~~
Felz
You might not realize just how expensive SMSes can be. Based on AWS SMS
pricing, they cost 6/10ths of a cent to US destinations each, so each deal
sent to 90,000 people in the article would cost twitter $540. That's not even
getting into Europe that can cost over 10 cents per SMS, but I doubt twitter
supported that.

~~~
fasteo
>>> Europe that can cost over 10 cents per SMS

Not my knowledge.

SMS prices in Europe varies from country to country, but I would say that they
are, on average, around 3-4 cents. You have cheap countries like Portugal (1-2
cent), intermediate countries like Spain (2-3 cents) and France (3 cents) and
expensive countries like Germany (6 cents) or Belgium (6 cents).

From the top of me head, Azerbaijan is the most expensive country in the
world, at 10 cents per SMS.

Source: Running a SMS hub in Europe for the last 15 years.

~~~
Felz
It sounds like Amazon is adding quite a surcharge onto their SMS, then.

[https://aws.amazon.com/sns/sms-pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/sns/sms-
pricing/)

------
cfv
Twitter has degenerated into one of the least friendly things to build an app
for. I've had a better dev experience with Gab, ffs.

Not only that, but also their community building and tending is abysmal too,
so your app will end up used mostly by the kind of user that brings
infinitesimal value with them.

Twitter isn't worth it.

~~~
searchableguy
Just curious, isn't gab that extremist right wing site?

~~~
horsemessiah
Yup. Basically Facebook for the alt right.

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eigen-vector
This is quite unfortunate. In countries where whether the people have access
to internet or not is under the control of the government, this was a neat
work around to get voices heard. In the recent history, an 'internet lockdown'
has been the MO of many (oppressive) governments, including India.

edit: removed a comment on about 2-FA as it takes away from the intended
point.

~~~
pjc50
I don't think there are any countries with government controlled internet that
don't also have government controlled mobile networks, and SMS is sent in the
clear?

~~~
saagarjha
They'd have to remember to shut down the SMS network.

~~~
mtnGoat
dont have to shut it down entirely, just block twitters shortcodes and
numbers.

~~~
saagarjha
Which is work, especially if you're the kind of government that just shuts
down the internet rather than blocking undesirable content.

------
herf
I was on a flight a couple years ago that had free texting through T-Mobile.

What else to do but use Twitter through SMS? It was surprisingly still very
good--could follow the news at very low bandwidth.

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crazygringo
I mean, Twitter over SMS made perfect and necessary sense back in the first
decade of its life.

But honestly the time has long since passed where it still makes sense to
support. Smartphone notifications with the app are far superior in every way.
(And if you don't want to install the app? I mean, just don't use Twitter
then.)

And the only people who don't have smartphones these days are the kind of
people who have made an intentional choice to reduce their always-on digital
connection. They are the very least likely people to use Twitter anyways.

It's a good thing when a company is able to simplify its software architecture
to remove code that's expensive to maintain and keep protected from security
vulnerabilities.

~~~
AkshatM
> the only people who don't have smartphones these days are the kind of people
> who have made an intentional choice to reduce their always-on digital
> connection

This needs to be qualified: _with respect to Twitter 's target audience_.

It's empirically not true that smartphone penetration is universal. Only ~350
million smartphones exist in India for 1 billion people, for example (source:
McKinsey Global Institute's "Digital India" report publication from April
2019).

It's a fair statement to say that the majority of prospective and current
Twitter users have smartphones, which justifies this decision.

~~~
crazygringo
Totally agreed. I'm wondering if Twitter still supports SMS in India, but
unfortunately can't locate any page that lists the countries they're still
supporting.

Bizarrely, the relevant link in their help center is broken:

[https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/supported-
mobile-c...](https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/supported-mobile-
carriers)

It used to work:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200420041309/https://help.twit...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200420041309/https://help.twitter.com/en/using-
twitter/supported-mobile-carriers)

------
QuantumGood
I "lost" 250,000 followers back in the day due to a Twitter change.

People used to think we— @Twitter_Tips —worked for Twitter. When Twitter
forced us to change our username to @TweetSmarter, @Twitter_Tips became a
"new" account (that no one could use) that started with zero followers. In a
few weeks it racked up over 250,000 followers—that were "ours"—because of all
the press, blogs, lists, good will, etc we had on that account.

We supported the great software ecosystem that grew up around Twitter, and
watched closely as Twitter killed it all off.

~~~
alexmingoia
That’s fucked up. It’s a lesson though for me that email and RSS are the only
true ways to build an audience that’s actually yours.

------
yosito
I remember when the ability to use Twitter via SMS was touted as a way to help
people communicate around firewalls and internet outages or restrictive data
plans. I'm not sure if there was ever a strong case for that, but the idealist
in me feels that this is a loss for some of the least connected.

------
HenryBemis
Wait!!!!!

So Dan was a freeloader, instead of HIM paying the cost to notify HIS
subscribers (aka TWITTER followers), he externalised/rolled off the cost to
Twitter. Now that Twitter wants to do some cost-cutting and Dan has to pay HIS
own "phone bill" for HIS customers, Dan is calling out on Twitter? Suck it up
bro.

When I hear people complaining that "in our office they changed the coffee to
a shittier one", I know what this is a prelude for avalanche of cost cutting
measures. SMS in Twitter are being switched off? Blame the folks that created
their business on someone else's £€¥$ and the Twitter shareholders came
calling for more profit.

I wonder what are the savings that Twitter is making by flipping that switch
off...

------
tallgiraffe
Wow, it’s been more than 10 years since twitter was born. Can’t believe
they’ve been running txt based version for this long. Does it mean the mobile
web has finally penetrated enough countries where browsing is as cheap and
accessible as text?

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mkchoi212
Author’s claims are valid. SMS is still relied upon in countries without
stable internet connection. Twitter should use its resources to fix the
vulnerabilities and not just kill it off. Seems like they are straying away
from their mission of allowing everyone to create and share ideas without
barriers.

~~~
epx
Nowadays SMS take longer to deliver than WhatsApp. Have tried to use SMS being
in very remote areas with bad cell coverage to tell my wife where I was, they
never arrived. WhatsApp delivered as soon as I overcame a hill crest and there
was a sliver of 3G signal.

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jdofaz
Twitter via SMS stopped being useful when they blocked sending commands via
SMS.

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tracker1
I'm curious how much money Twitter is saving by cutting the option.

~~~
jdofaz
Supposedly they had deals with the carriers

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3668372/how-was-
twitter-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3668372/how-was-twitter-able-
to-send-receive-millions-of-sms-messages-for-free)

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donatj
My wife will be disappointed, she still uses it regularly.

------
0xff00ffee
TXT2MOB IS DEAD!

LONG LIVE TXT2MOB!

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cicadas
Good. SMS 2FA should follow.

