every time I see a link to images.app.goo.gl I don't wanna click the link anymore
google image search actively keeps people from just sharing the direct link to the image file and that's really worrying
@sfner what are you talking about, it just shows the picture
@noiob oh, I got mistaken with their photo backuping app. photos.app.goo.gl
@sfner that one makes sense, they want people to be able to comment and import into their own cloud storage, I can live with that. Like, it still annoys the heck out of me…
the image search one is annoying because people use it to post memes and reaction images, and instead of just showing the image in whatever platform it's shared on there's like five redirects
@noiob if I recall it correctly, Google removed "View Image" after a lawsuit from Getty Images. The "View Image" did contain a direct link to the image and that, for some reason, was a problem - maybe people were using and redistributing their stock photos without a license from the link Google provided, instead of being greeted with a paywall.
@sfner well, ddg still has that link so I just use that
@noiob if they allowed you to share the image file, they wouldn't be able to require people to log in to see a content. It's a "growth" and data hoarding strategy, where you're constantly invited to sign contacts allowing them to do whatever they want with the data they already collected about you before having your "consent" to do so.