If people are sharing the links including the basic auth embedded, not much. However it splits the problem into two halves. One part deals with auth, one part d

If people are sharing the links including the basic auth embedded, not much. However it splits the problem into two halves. One part deals with auth, one part deals with the identity of the resource. So you can have different auth, or change the auth, without changing the URL. In practice, the most important difference between those is about what gets copied when someone shares a link. If the only possible option is to share it with the authentication embedded, you're kind of screwed. I don't think browsers expose the basic auth when you copy and paste from your url bar though.