21–30 of 194 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably, saving disk space on some google servers.
More than disk space I think they care about having short links, higher cache hit rates and saving RAM on their fleet.
I'll never use a URL shortener again.
Shortened or not, they change, disappear, get redirected, all the time. There was once an idea that a URL was (or should be) a permanent reference, but to the extent that was ever true it's long in the past.
The closest thing we might have to that is an Internet Archive link.
Otherwise, don't cite URLs. Cite authors, titles, keywords, and dates, and maybe a search engine will turn up the document, if it exists at all.
I don't understand. For you to see the message, you have to click on the link. Your clicking on the link must mean that the link is active, since it is getting clicks. So why is the link being deactivated for being inactive?
Apparently they measured it once by running a map-reduce or equivalent.
I don’t see why they couldn’t measure it again. Maybe they don’t want it to be gamed, but why?
What amazes me is that this wasn't the original plan. What product manager thinks "the best thing for our customers is to delete their data!". > We understand these links are embedded in countless documents, videos, posts and more, and we appreciate the input received. How did they think the links were being used?
i read in an earlier thread for this on HN - "this is a classic example of data driven product decision" aka we can reduce costs by $x if we just stopped goo.gl links. Instead of actually wondering how this would impact the customers. Also helps that they are in a culture which does not mind killing services on a whim.
Then they should also be okay for keeping the goo.gl links honestly.
Sounds kinda bad for some good will but this is literally google, the one thing google is notorious for is killing their products.
I'll never use a URL shortener again.
Has there ever been one that survived for a really long time?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably, saving disk space on some google servers.
More than disk space I think they care about having short links, higher cache hit rates and saving RAM on their fleet.
1043*1000000000 / (1023^3)
10 4 byte characters times 3 billion links, dividing by 1 GB of memory...
Roughly 111 GB of RAM.
Which is like nothing to a search giant.
To put that into perspective, my Desktop Computer's max Mobo memory is 128 GB, so saying it has to do with RAM is like saying they needed to shut off a couple servers...and save like maybe a thousand dollars.
This reeks of something else, if not just sheer ineptitude...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Do PMs at Google have so much power that they can shut down a product used by billions of people?
I’m not defending it, just that I can absolutely imagine Google PMs making a chart of “$ saved vs clicks” and everyone slapping each other on the back and saying good job well done.
I'll never use a URL shortener again.