Show HN: pygm.us, the fail-only URL shortener
pygm.us
pygm.us
As I say on the site, the idea is that if a URL shortener is known to be unreliable, it'll force people to use it only for short-term convenience (the "non-evil" use case) and thus won't cause long-term problems (e.g., what if the site goes away, et cetera).
I realize there are other concerns (operators trying to monetize the links by inserting interstitial ads), so I suppose you'll just have to trust me when I say I promise that pygm.us won't do that. :)
Agreed that there's still, e.g., the problem of people hiding affiliate links behind shorteners and the like.
Note also that you can always append = to the URL to get its status page, which tells you where the link goes. (I realize this is a less than satisfying solution to the general problem.)