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Presumably to impede automated crawling.

It's not like google can't crawl their own unlisted links on YouTube and google docs. I suppose google is the one that cares though.

They can't if the forum is password protected or URL is "decomposed" in different pieces that you have to recompose

Same thing exists for mega URLs

There are subreddits like megalinks and drivelinks for sharing

One benefit is that you can download the file with ease; YouTube does not do have a download/save feature that I've seen. Lots of third-party workarounds, but nothing native.

Easier to take down a drive link than to take down the youtube video and reupload for a new URL.