3 ms·

Can someone please explain to me why this is cool? What are the benefits of using a decentralized url shortening service?

sverhagen 8y ago
Because centralized ones can go out of business and thus break your URLs? Google URL Shortener/goo.gl, from what I quickly read, seems to do their best to keep existing short URLs working, but I'm sure some people got scared when their discontinuation was announced.
brad0 8y ago
The problem with centralised URL shorteners is that the site can shut down for any reason. It doesn’t make money, it isn’t important to the maintainer, there’s a db failure etc. With a decentralised system it’s a lot more resilient to failure.
- vishnu_ks 8y ago
  > The problem with centralised URL shorteners is that the site can shut down for any reason. Yeah. The same problem is with IPFS as well. Someone has to seed the content of files in IPFS. If no one is seeding, the file will not be available. I don't honestly think anyone else is going to seed the URL files other than the people who run this site. If this site goes down everything does down as well. > It doesn’t make money, it isn’t important to the maintainer, there’s a db failure etc. If this site doesn't make money it's not important for the maintainer of this site to seed the files as well :)
duskwuff 8y ago
And on top of that: what practical applications does a URL shortener have nowadays? There was a time when they were pretty popular for posting links on Twitter, but Twitter made t.co an automatic part of their service in 2010.
- brad0 8y ago
  I think it’s useful any place where space is constrained. - on the terminal (clickable short URL that doesn’t wrap is great!) - QR codes (shorter URL will encode to less squares which means easier to scan)
- EugeneOZ 8y ago
  When you need to publish some huge URL without copy-paste tools (paper, documents, phone call).
- r3bl 8y ago
  As an example, I use Git.io to include my GitHub projects on my resume. Using one repo as an example, the link got shortened from 37 characters (a few links would quickly clutter the resume) down to 10 (short and sweet, can fit the link inline with the name of the project and the technologies used).
zzo38computer 8y ago
I don't like URL shortening, and in almost all cases should not be in use (if needed in the few cases where it is helpful, you can host your own short version of a URL on the same server; in this case it is likely that both URLs break simultaneously if it is broken). Rather, should see the URL that it will be directly.

sverhagen 8y ago

Because centralized ones can go out of business and thus break your URLs? Google URL Shortener/goo.gl, from what I quickly read, seems to do their best to keep existing short URLs working, but I'm sure some people got scared when their discontinuation was announced.

brad0 8y ago

The problem with centralised URL shorteners is that the site can shut down for any reason. It doesn’t make money, it isn’t important to the maintainer, there’s a db failure etc. With a decentralised system it’s a lot more resilient to failure.

vishnu_ks 8y ago
> The problem with centralised URL shorteners is that the site can shut down for any reason. Yeah. The same problem is with IPFS as well. Someone has to seed the content of files in IPFS. If no one is seeding, the file will not be available. I don't honestly think anyone else is going to seed the URL files other than the people who run this site. If this site goes down everything does down as well. > It doesn’t make money, it isn’t important to the maintainer, there’s a db failure etc. If this site doesn't make money it's not important for the maintainer of this site to seed the files as well :)

duskwuff 8y ago

And on top of that: what practical applications does a URL shortener have nowadays? There was a time when they were pretty popular for posting links on Twitter, but Twitter made t.co an automatic part of their service in 2010.

brad0 8y ago
I think it’s useful any place where space is constrained. - on the terminal (clickable short URL that doesn’t wrap is great!) - QR codes (shorter URL will encode to less squares which means easier to scan)
EugeneOZ 8y ago
When you need to publish some huge URL without copy-paste tools (paper, documents, phone call).
r3bl 8y ago
As an example, I use Git.io to include my GitHub projects on my resume. Using one repo as an example, the link got shortened from 37 characters (a few links would quickly clutter the resume) down to 10 (short and sweet, can fit the link inline with the name of the project and the technologies used).

zzo38computer 8y ago

I don't like URL shortening, and in almost all cases should not be in use (if needed in the few cases where it is helpful, you can host your own short version of a URL on the same server; in this case it is likely that both URLs break simultaneously if it is broken). Rather, should see the URL that it will be directly.