URL Shortening has no place
Over the last few days there have been many words written about Google's URL shortening (goo.gl) service being canned.
Firstly, let's not be surprised. Almost everything Google ever launches, with the exception of Gmail, eventually dies a slow death.
That aside, there is no place for URL shortening in the modern era.
Personally, I have always hated them -- from tinyurl in 2002, bitly in 2008, and onwards through all the incarnations, deviations, and impostors.
Why? Simply, I want to know where I am going before I click. I don't wish a surprise after the click. There's no saying where I might end up, and what illegal/harmful content may appear.
They had a place in the early days when Twitter was limited to 160 characters, so you needed short URLs, but I still never clicked.
Over the years, the services have introduced features to allow you to check the destination, but that involved copying the short url, adding a code at the end, and opening a new tab to visit their site. Faff!
Nowadays these tools have no relevance. Almost all social media services use their own internal magic to ensure a URL consumes a consistent number of characters (maybe 12 depending on what service).
The only other reason for Shortening URLs was telemetry. Better known as tracking. Yet another reason to skip it.
I feel the pain of those who have year's of articles using the goo.gl shortening links. These will stop working next year.
RIP URL shortening.