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At the risk of sounding silly, what advantage does this provide over buying a $20 TracFone for cash and activating it without an account on TracFone.com over a

by Endy 9y ago

At the risk of sounding silly, what advantage does this provide over buying a $20 TracFone for cash and activating it without an account on TracFone.com over a public Wi-Fi? Or, better yet, not bothering to "activate" it, but using it only over Wi-Fi, creating a new Google account, and downloading Talkatone (or the Hangouts Messenger to create a Google Voice account connected to your new account)?

gregorymichael 9y ago
Greg from Twilio here. Not a silly question at all. Developers certainly have a propensity to recreate the wheel for the sake of recreating the wheel -- though I think that many of us would agree that the act of creating is itself the advantage. That said, a few things: 1. Costs less. A Twilio phone number is $1 per month (in the US). A minute of calling costs $0.01. 2. You can get a new number any time you want. 3. You get to write code. Don't want to speak for Marcos (though he happens to be sitting 10 feet from me at the moment), but my guess is that what excites him most about writing this post isn't that other developers will copy it line for line. It's that they'll use it as a jumping off point -- that it inspires and equips developers to ship their own inventions. For an example of this, check out the folks at Burner app who used the similar concept (pre-Kotlin) to build an entire business around this idea. [1]: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/burner-app-offers-alias-phone-numbers-powered-by-twilio.html https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/burner-app-offers-alias-...
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  For example, this is the same model Uber uses to anonymize the driver's and rider's phone numbers. Probably when a driver signs off their number is released for a new driver to use until they sign off.
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
    Do they use a unique number per driver per shift? If you know the rider's and driver's phone numbers, then you can connect them anonymously with just a single phone number. When I call that number, see if I have a ride in progress, and put me through to the right driver. This assumes no pooling. With pooling you might need 4 numbers, as the driver could have up to 4 separate passengers they want to contact.

by Endy 9y ago

gregorymichael 9y ago

Greg from Twilio here. Not a silly question at all. Developers certainly have a propensity to recreate the wheel for the sake of recreating the wheel -- though I think that many of us would agree that the act of creating is itself the advantage. That said, a few things: 1. Costs less. A Twilio phone number is $1 per month (in the US). A minute of calling costs $0.01. 2. You can get a new number any time you want. 3. You get to write code. Don't want to speak for Marcos (though he happens to be sitting 10 feet from me at the moment), but my guess is that what excites him most about writing this post isn't that other developers will copy it line for line. It's that they'll use it as a jumping off point -- that it inspires and equips developers to ship their own inventions. For an example of this, check out the folks at Burner app who used the similar concept (pre-Kotlin) to build an entire business around this idea. [1]: https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/burner-app-offers-alias-phone-numbers-powered-by-twilio.html https://www.twilio.com/blog/2012/08/burner-app-offers-alias-...

CodeWriter23 9y ago
For example, this is the same model Uber uses to anonymize the driver's and rider's phone numbers. Probably when a driver signs off their number is released for a new driver to use until they sign off.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  Do they use a unique number per driver per shift? If you know the rider's and driver's phone numbers, then you can connect them anonymously with just a single phone number. When I call that number, see if I have a ride in progress, and put me through to the right driver. This assumes no pooling. With pooling you might need 4 numbers, as the driver could have up to 4 separate passengers they want to contact.