[BoorishBears]

I don't think anyone who's worked at a product company can't imagine how some CISO whipping up a bunch of VPs into a frenzy over malware is the most likely scenario.

Definitely more likely than someone actually complaining that the money furnace was burning money in a way that increases engagement, gives people something to stream, and gives people a reason to buy their premium subscription.

[somnic]

Discord allowed hotlinking their files until recently, so it wasn't necessarily driving as much engagement as all that.

[BoorishBears]

Hotlinking doesn't happen in a vacuum: if people were seriously congregating to setup shares and paying for Nitro for the 500MB limit, I doubt anyone would have cross their "activation energy" to blanket ban the links rather than dealing with disruptive servers as needed