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[–] 22 points 9 months ago (6 children)

When sharing links with people in places where there’s a character limit or to avoid polluting visuals.

Also, when sharing like orally or showing it to someone else when you have no other way to communicate it: ex, the link of a shared cloud file

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Infuriatingly, URL shortners are often used in QR codes because they have a character limit-ish (longer strings make for more detailed QR codes, which are harder to scan from further away so it's a trade-off). but if the QR points to a shortened link then it's more difficult to assess where a QR code is pointing without blindly following the link.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    My biggest bugbear relating to this is the lack of a short text alternative for QR codes, especially with long URLs.
    If the URL is too long to fit into a QR code, then it's also too long for me to type in manually!

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I think I like an alternative that uses full words instead of a string of no sense symbols and mixed case letters.

    Something like what What 3 Words does but for short URLs. That would be easy to convey and type

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