This! I've run into very frustrating examples of legit sites doing that, for no defensible reason at all.

For example, the healthcare.gov emails. For links to that domain, they would still transform them with lnks.gd, even though:

1) The emails would be very long and flashy, so they're clearly not economizing on space.

2) The "shortened" URL was usually longer!

3) That domain doesn't let you go straight to the root and check where the transformed URL is going.

It's training users to do the very things that expose them to scammers!