[codeonline]

They are useful for links that need to outlive the infrastructure they are hosted on. Think about them as a layer of abstraction. Ie. Links in paper published to a journal like nature. It might be valid for 10 years but the links embedded in it will rot quickly as organisations change cms's, domains names change. Organisations merge and disappear.

Also places where the cost to change the url is expensive, bus shelter adverts etc.

[acdha]

I think this is important but also hits the trust problem: open shorteners are basically training users to be phished but a controlled namespace doesn’t have that problem. Ideally you can use a domain you control for everything to get full control of your reputation while still retaining the flexibility to redirect links as needed.

[15457345234]

> links embedded in it will rot quickly as organisations change cms's, domains names change. Organisations merge and disappear.

A link shortener doesn't solve any of those problems

[codeonline]

They do when you control the link shortener