In theory you could get real time tracking with Mixpanel, but in practice their results seem to be an hour or two behind at least some of the time, so I'm not sure how that compares to bit.ly. It isn't free either.
So if I post a link on Twitter, and then one on Facebook, and then one on HN? Bit.ly allows me to see which people are coming from where, how quickly, and what percentages of readers are getting any use from the links on the site. All at the same time.
I had already looked at Google (way too slow) and MixPanel (also too slow)
Somebody emailed me with some product -- clicky? Never heard of it before. I guess there are others?
I need to do some more research on what's out there. I had no idea bit.ly bothered people so much. To me it was an easy, free option that gave me cool real-time graphs. Aside from "breaking the internet", whatever that means, what's not to like? Honestly I still don't get it, but I'm happy to find something else.