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Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

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Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#61

Post by dietr1ch »

nomel wrote: post #56
dietr1ch wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Roughly 111 GB of RAM. Which is like nothing to a search giant. You are forgetting job replication. A global service can easily have 100s of jobs on 10-20 datacenters. Saving 111TiB of RAM can probably pay your salary forever. I think I paid mine with fewer savings while there. During covid there was a RAM shortage too enough to have a call to prefer trading CPU to save RAM with changes to the rule of thumb resourc…

> A global service can easily have 100s of jobs on 10-20 datacenters. There's obviously, something in between maintaining the latency with 20 datacenter, increasing the latency a bit reducing hosting to a couple $100 worth of servers, and setting the latency to infinity, which was the original plan.

I'm guessing that they ran out of leeway with small tweaks and found that breaking inactive links was probably a better way out. We don't know the hit rates of what they call inactive nor the real cost it takes to keep them around.

A service like this is probably on maintenance mode too, so simplifying it to use fewer resources probably makes sense, and I bet the PMs are happy about shorter links, since at some point you are better off not using a link shortener and instead just use a QR code in fear of inconvenience and typos.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#62

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

ameliaquining wrote: post #47
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, that's a great question I think I might be doing a self plug here, so pardon me but I am pretty sure that I can create something like a link shortener which can last essentially permanent, it has to do with crypto (I don't adore it as an investment, I must make it absolutely clear) But basically I have created nanotimestamps which can embed some data in nano blockchain and that data could theoretically be a…

You can't address the risk that whoever owns the domain will stop renewing it, or otherwise stop making the web gateway available. Best-case scenario is that it becomes possible to find out what URL a shortened link used to point to, for as long as the underlying blockchain lasts, but if a regular user clicks on a link after the web gateway shuts down then they'll get an error message or end up on a domain squatting…

I mean yes the web gateway can shut, but honestly like atleast with goo.gl if things go down, then there is no way of recovering.

With the system I am presenting, I think that it can be possible to have a website like redirect.com/ and even if redirect.com goes down then yes that link would stop working but what redirect.com is doing under the hood can be done by anybody so that being said,

it can be possible for someone to archive redirect.com main site which might give instructions which can give a recent list on github or some other place which can give a list of top updated working web gateways

And so anybody can go to archive.org, see that's what they meant and try it or maybe we can have some sort of slug like redirect.com/block/ and then maybe people can then have it be understood to block meaning this is just a gateway (a better more niche word would help)

But still, at the end of the day there is some way of using that shortened link forever thus being permanent in some sense.

Like Imagine that someone uses goo.gl link for some extremely important document and then somehow it becomes inaccessible for whatever use case and now... Its just gone?

I think that a way to recover that could really help. But honestly, I am all in for feedback and since its 0 fees and as such I would most likely completely open source it and neither am I involved in this crypto project, I most likely will earn nothing like ever even if I do make this, but I just hope that I could help in making the internet a little less like a graveyard with dead links and help in that aspect.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#63

Post by rsync »

AlienRobot wrote: post #3

I'll never use a URL shortener again.

"I'll never use a URL shortener again."

I don't know if anyone should use a URL shortener or not ... but if you do ...

"Oh By"[1] will be around in thirty years.

Links will not be "purged". Users won't be tracked. Ads won't be served.

[1] https://0x.co

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#64

Post by no_wizard »

borg16 wrote: post #18
jasonpeacock wrote: post #7

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.

Arguably, this is them collecting the wrong types of data to inform decisions, if that isn't represented in the data.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#65

Post by thevillagechief »

borg16 wrote: post #18
jasonpeacock wrote: post #7

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.

One of the complaints about Google is that it's difficult to launch products due to bureaucracy. I'm starting to thing that's not a bad thing. If they'd done a careful analysis of the cost of jumping into this url-shortener bandwagon, we wouldn't be here. Maybe it's not a bad thing they move slower now.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#66

Post by userbinator »

neilv wrote: post #42

"Actively used" criteria scrods that critical old document you found, in which someone trusted it was safe to use a Google link. Not knowing all the details motivating this surprising decision, from the outside, I'd expect this to be an easy "Don't Be Evil" call: "If we don't want to make new links, we can stop taking them (with advance warning, for any automation clients). But we mustn't throw away this information…

"Those who control the past control the present. Those who control the present control the future."

Look at what happened to their search results over the years and you'll understand.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#67

Post by cogman10 »

Aurornis wrote: post #41
borg16 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Google URL shortener stopped accepting new links around 2018. It has been deprecated for a long time. I doubt it was a cost-driven decision on the basis of running the servers. My guess would be that it was a security and maintenance burden that nobody wanted. They also might have wanted to use the domain for something else.

How much of a burden could this really be?

The nature of something like this is that the cost to run it naturally goes down over time. Old links get clicked less so the hardware costs would be basically nothing.

As for the actual software security, it's a URL shortener. They could rewrite the entire thing in almost no time with just a single dev. Especially since it's strictly hosting static links at this point.

It probably took them more time and money to find inactive links than it'd take to keep the entire thing running for a couple of years.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#68

Post by progval »

inetknght wrote: post #53
neilv wrote: post #42

"Actively used" criteria scrods that critical old document you found, in which someone trusted it was safe to use a Google link. Not knowing all the details motivating this surprising decision, from the outside, I'd expect this to be an easy "Don't Be Evil" call: "If we don't want to make new links, we can stop taking them (with advance warning, for any automation clients). But we mustn't throw away this information…

> someone trusted it was safe to use a Google link. That someone made a poor decision to rely on anything made by Google.

Hindsight is 20/20. Google was considered by geeks to be a very reliable company at some point.

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#69

Post by echoangle »

rsync wrote: post #63
AlienRobot wrote: post #3

I'll never use a URL shortener again.

"I'll never use a URL shortener again." I don't know if anyone should use a URL shortener or not ... but if you do ... "Oh By"[1] will be around in thirty years. Links will not be "purged". Users won't be tracked. Ads won't be served. [1] https://0x.co

> "Oh By"[1] will be around in thirty years.

How can you (or I) know that?

Re: Google shifts goo.gl policy: Inactive links deactivated, active links preserved

#70

Post by jerlam »

borg16 wrote: post #18
jasonpeacock wrote: post #7

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.

Goo.gl didn't have customers, it had users. Customers pay, either with money or their personal data, now or the future. Goo.gl did not make any money or have a plan to do so in the future.
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