On the other hand, this is a 100% self-inflicted problem. There is no technical reason why links have to be shortened (for SMS users back in the day, the short

On the other hand, this is a 100% self-inflicted problem. There is no technical reason why links have to be shortened (for SMS users back in the day, the shortening should've happened at the SMS gateway level, with actual Twitter content always using the real links). You don't need (as many) reliability engineers if you don't add unnecessary moving parts into the system in the first place.