Redirect pages - basic question

Why are redirect pages so common?

Why don't websites just render their pages with the affiliate links in them and instead place links to a page on the same website which then redirects to the affiliate link? And this isn't just affiliates, so many websites do it. For example when you place external links on facebook as posts, facebook actually show them as links to some facebook redirect page. Why?

Thanks

1st. It makes your links look neat and pretty.

2nd. It prevents you from leaking rank juice to the sites your affiliated with.

3rd. Usually the redirect page is blocked from indexing by the search engines so your site does not apear too spammy.

Google it and you will find plenty of info on the subject. If you use wordpress theres a lot of plugins which will do all the "cloaking" work from you.If you're not familiar with ftp and not sure wjat you're doing i will advise you to use a plugin. Gl

1. Why does it make the links look neat? You still have to pass the affiliate link on to the redirect page, the link is still there.

2. What?

3. That makes sense.

Most of the big networks use those redirect/exit script in order to block malicious end sites as well as for tracking.
I've created my own script like that which also handles my affiliate links and is a huge time saver.

What kind of malicious end users? What could a user do just because the affiliate link is rendered in the landing page as opposed to a redirect page?