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Bitly injecting ads into shortened links
- mig39 2y agoGreat time to spin up your own URL shortener. I dumped bit.ly long ago, and have my own that I can control.
- ikesau 2y agoDoes anyone know of a corollary to web3isgoinggreat.com that compiles all these instances of enshittification? It would be fascinating to read through a crowdsourced list of ways in which SaaS companies have altered the deal.
- adolph 2y agoUsing a gerund is a touch false. The evidence provided is a change in the ToS from bitly: Upcoming changes to our Terms of Service We are making some adjustments to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy that will affect you as a user of Bitly's free plan. Beginning in the next month, when your audience interacts with your Bitly links or QR Codes, they may see a preview page prior to being directed to the destination URL. The page includes information about the link destination and may include advertising. As a free Bitly user, you can remove the preview page experience from your links and QR Codes at any time by selecting a paid Bitly plan.
- jimbob45 2y agoThe original link is dead but I have no reason not to trust what you're saying. Is this for new links or links from all time?
- bananapub 2y agothat is indeed the email they sent out and it definitely suggests all links will get interstitial junk.
- deweller 2y agoLinks from non-paid users will get an interstitial.
- mobilio 2y agoALL links. But you can turn this off for links if you are using paid account. This setting is unavailable for free accounts.
- lupire 2y ago"inject" is the wrong word too. They aren't modifying links or linked pages. It's a free service that displays ads before showing free content. Like most other free services. Flagged the misleading title.
- bananapub 2y ago"inject [in to the redirection process]" is clear and accurate
- albert_e 2y agoSo the solution is to pre-scrape all bitly URL expansions by brute force and seed the torrent so that someone else can build a librebit.ly ?
- lupire 2y agoAnd then insert ads in your service to cover expenses. It's imgur all over again.
- yapyap 2y agosad but it makes sense, nothing is free. when a service is free or too cheap to be economically viable, they’re just trying to get a huge userbase, get rid of the competition and then when they’re a monopoly or almost one they raise prices or do something to become profitable. of course there’s exceptions like with mom and pop ventures but big companies will get ‘sponsored’ (invested in) by already very rich venture capitals or oil rich countries like the UAE and in return for a big stake in the company they get a certain amount of money to ‘blow’ on getting new users.
- jvns 2y agoDeleted this post because I don't think a random screenshot from my email is a good source for people to refer to. A better source might be the bitly terms of service: https://bitly.com/pages/terms-of-service https://bitly.com/pages/terms-of-service (1.4 Destination Preview)
- DavideNL 2y ago> "Bitly is now using ads on free accounts to continue delivering free plans at no cost to our users. As part of the update, we introduced an interstitial page that includes a preview of the link destination and an ad. If you prefer an ad-free experience, you can upgrade to one of our paid plans here." : https://support.bitly.com/hc/en-us/articles/32874287800333-Why-are-there-ads-on-my-links https://support.bitly.com/hc/en-us/articles/32874287800333-W...
- beardyw 2y agoA service which offers something for free with no obvious form of monetisation needs to be treated as a red flag.
- OutOfHere 2y agoBitly always had monetization via paid plans. Over the years they have cannibalized their free tier, however.
- spondyl 2y agoPrevious submissions on the topic, although none were picked up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42854927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42854927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43024328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43024328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42996300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42996300