On one hand, SMS is not free. On the other hand, maintaining a short code is like $3000 quarterly last time I had it quoted, and you're looking at $0.003 for outbound text messages and $0.0009 for inbound. You'd also have to maintain a block list to remain compliant with FCC regulations, though doing the service as opt-in only may get you around that a bit.

Now let's do some napkin math. If the 450,000,000 active users perform a login once a month that triggers second factor, you'd take that $0.003 and multiply it by the total active users. That gives us $1,350,000 in outbound SMS fees. That is... actually quite a bit more money than I expected.

This is why you should always build stuff like this with something along the lines of "if variable.enabled=true then deliver message, else do nothing." Then you can just toggle off a faulty alarm.

If SVB is dissolved, and if any of those 6000 people are actually experts, that expertise will be seeded throughout the industry and provide opportunities for those skill sets to be spread among their new teams. If.

I've written appointment reminder software that leverages one of Twilio's competitors (Signalwire) for delivery and they seem to do just fine in things like this. In testing use cases, I have to prove ownership of both sending and receiving phone number. They also require all SMS messaging campaigns to be registered as per FCC requirements. I know they filter it too, because when the FCC rule went into effect I hadn't received notification yet, and my first clue was everything suddenly showing up in the logs as being blocked.

Judging from "FAFSA" in your post, you're probably in the US. I recommend looking into series i savings bonds for the kind of liquidity limitation and inflation protection you are looking for.

They really should at least try it but have always been resistant. I have a mac mini that I use as a server that I keep connected to my cintiq pro, which is then able to act as a KVM switch between the mini and my more robust windows box. MacOS running with full multitouch and pen support is actually really really nice.