[lorenzhs]

> This is a pretty puzzling idea to me.

That's because you're responding to an entirely different issue. "Hotlinking" isn't linking to something, it's including a resource that is hosted elsewhere. It's putting <img src="https://concordDance.whatever/images/big_image.jpg"> on my website without asking you. Now if my site ends up on the front page of HN, that could cause a lot of traffic to your site, potentially overwhelming your server or increasing your hosting bill. It's not nice, and rightfully frowned upon.

[concordDance]

But from a loss and gain perspective it seems equivalent.

In both cases the site loses bandwidth for no gain due to your actions.