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Show HN: pygm.us, the fail-only URL shortener
- kwantam 16y agoI wanted a project to get myself familiar with the pyramid framework, so I threw together this little jobby. 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. :)
- copypasteweb 16y agoThe problem of target URL being unknown until you follow the link still applies.
- kwantam 16y agoTotally true. It seems to me that for most of the legitimate temporary uses (e.g., shortening a google maps URL), that's not a huge issue. 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.)
- copypasteweb 16y agoIt's not about affiliate links or advertisements. Target URL should be just there, without contacting random servers to determine it.