alt Hacker News> A lot of people enter the company or product name into the browser's search field
They had to already know the company name or product name to get there.
This doesn’t just happen. Spreading the name of the product and getting it to stick in people’s minds takes a lot of advertising budget, on the whole.
I'm concerned that companies spend their advertising budget on these redirects because those have the best metrics, instead of actually making the brand and its products more known.