Well, I for one used those links to navigate between Google properties: from Gmail to YouTube, for instance. Now I just don't go to YouTube when something on G

Well, I for one used those links to navigate between Google properties: from Gmail to YouTube, for instance. Now I just don't go to YouTube when something on Gmail piques my interest. That one click was a huge amount of effort for casual browsing, and forces a re-evaluation of idle browsing between properties.