Tell HN: Goo.gl (Google link Shortener) is shutting down

When you visit the goo.gl homepage, this message appears:

> Starting March 30, 2018, we will be turning down support for goo.gl URL shortener. From April 13, 2018 only existing users will be able to create short links on the goo.gl console. You will be able to view your analytics data and download your short link information in csv format for up to one year, until March 30, 2019, when we will discontinue goo.gl. Previously created links will continue to redirect to their intended destination. Please see this blog post[1] for more details.

[1]: https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/03/transitioning-google-url-shortener.html?m=1

Can anyone explain to me what is the use case for URL shorteners? Other than for size limited messages like Twitter I guess.

I use them in presentations, it's easier to have a really short URL on the slide for people. I'm not sure how common that is, but it's really handy. Other than that, I've not used them for anything.

At posters, e.g. link to register for an event.

PSA: You can make your own (relatively) shorter URLs if you're willing to guess at how to un-pretty site's URLs. My most common one is Amazon. Most URLs are amazon.com/dp/xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Knowing that you can take a nasty URL like:

https://www.amazon.com/Red-4TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B00EHBERSE...

and change it to:

https://amazon.com/dp/B00EHBERSE

That's 122 chars to 32 chars. This kind of tactic works for tons of sites.