Bitly Changes: Link-Shortening, Now with Advertising
Bitly, the link-shortening service long used by millions, decides it’s going to place an ad between you and your link. Don’t like it? It’ll cost ya.
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Everything must enshittify.
Have link shorteners ever not been shitty? It obfuscates a link for the sake of making things look pretty for people who can't format text
Link shorteners have absolutely been useful when you need to go to a long URL on a entirely different device you can't copy a link to easily.
I've used them to make it easy to get to scripts.
QR codes mostly solved that.
Not when you are working in a CLI
Your comment prompted me to search and I found this util: https://github.com/fumiyas/qrc
Obviously results in a larger ASCII blob than a shortened URL, but would allow use on any terminal.
It's the other way around, I need to get long links to the CLI
Shortening the URL makes it possible to have significantly lower resolution QR codes, which is almost always more useful. Able to be rendered on more mediums, able to be read with lower quality readers.
Service-specific link shorteners are alright, like youtu.be, a.co and goo.gl/maps. At least know roughly where you're going.
For anything else, I rather see the full URLs, and if I need to share a link on a paper medium, I also make it available in a QRcode form.
IIRC, they originally became popular because they saved characters for microblogs like Twitter. They've outlasted their usefulness though.
I think some used them to gain insight in clicks (bit.ly provided stats for numbers, user agents etc.), and to track the origin of clicks by generating a unique shortened URL for each linking post.
Also, the obvious use case of turning a long direct URL to a file into something people can actually be bothered to manually copy from paper...
When it comes to email I just have my server reject any containing links that point to URL shorteners. I’m not stupid enough to click them anyway but it’s safe to assume you’re just a scammer or some other lowlife, even if you’re otherwise considered a reputable business.
