> if you wanted to send him a link Wait... why was no one just sending the link as plain text? So he could just copy paste? Or like news[dot]ycombinator[dot]co

> if you wanted to send him a link Wait... why was no one just sending the link as plain text? So he could just copy paste? Or like news[dot]ycombinator[dot]com/item?id=45532515 I guess this also begs the question why email clients don't have an option to dereference links or convert them to plain text? Like Click here for your HN comment | v [Click here for your HN comment](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45532515) I mean at the end of the day links are a formatting thing, right? I know it doesn't solve url shorteners, but then url shorteners become suspect, at least until some internal person starts being dumb and suggesting them because urls are way too long[0]. [0] but this also mostly seems solvable if we are okay with redirects and temporary info being passed in the link. Redirects might be an issue, but at least getting redirected from an official site is better than getting redirected from some shortening service. Maybe a big part of the problem is how we've bundled in so much tracking info...[1] [1] Which it's not like we haven't seen phishing links like https://ImALegitsite.conn.ImAnEvilSite.com https://ImALegitsite.conn.ImAnEvilSite.com https://ImALegitsite.conn.ImAnEvilSite.com