The author didn't really elaborate on what makes this really troubling: the tens (hundreds?) of millions of existing shortlinks out there in the wild right now that would be worthless (or worse, directed to spam or abusive sites). Generally, it's bad, but maybe not the end of the world if a startup loses their domain. But this seems like it would be an unmitigated disaster for a service like bit.ly. I hope they're aggressively working on some kind of strategy to get away from that domain name ASAP.
And this, kids, is yet another example of why URL shortening services should be avoided. They've single-handedly put ability to break the functionality of a growing chunk of the internet into the hands of one demonstrably unstable dictator in a developing nation.
And this, kids, is yet another example of why URL shortening services should be avoided. They've single-handedly put ability to break the functionality of a growing chunk of the internet into the hands of one demonstrably unstable dictator in a developing nation.