> What’s wrong with normal URLs? I've seen some random blogging software break when you embed certain kinds of links into articles, for example, ones that have

> What’s wrong with normal URLs? I've seen some random blogging software break when you embed certain kinds of links into articles, for example, ones that have query strings (?key=value), where the question mark gets interpreted as something else by the software and thus the link gets cut off and no longer works. In cases like that, it makes sense (because you literally don't have a choice, unless you want to migrate to something else). Also some might enjoy the consistency of short links, instead of having a URL that's really long. That is also pretty nice for putting the URL on a poster, flier, or sending it to someone. Some also just don't care about the implications of the link going down in the future.