I got really confused after the changes at Bitly after their upgrade and I understand they have received their fair share of negative feedback on this. I do understand that they want to develop Bitly as a service, moving forward with more features. And I assume they have a lot of users asking for this.

But my confusion is a minor detail when you just want your links shortened and some data on how well they are doing. Yes I was annoyed about the extra clicks I needed to get a short link and to be honest I still haven’t figured out how to shorten a link when using their mobile site on my iPad. So I let my Hootsuite account do the shortening for me instead. Nice and easy. The analytics part is not as good as it was in Bitly though. But for my simple use its good enough.

And I decided to stay with Bitly for a while to see if the new features were something I would grow to like.

But then I read the article on techcrunch.com, and the response from Bitlys CEO Peter Stern:

“It’s the response from the vocal minority who are quick to complain about any change. We put a great deal of thought and effort into making the change as minimal as we could, but we recognize that people don’t like change.”

I never looked at my self as a “vocal minority” or a rebel if you like. I just needed a fast way to shorten my links.

What arrogant statement! And this is the real reason why I stopped using Bitly, not the change.

But after reading the interview on techcrunch I see the change in a different light. An arrogant move to force light users (vocal minority), like me into something I do not need.

How hard could it be to keep and effective shorting solution for us vocal minority and let the silence majority rejoice the other features?