Hacker News Reader

Comment by slang800 | Hacker News Reader

You should add a way to export all the URLs on the platform in a format that matches the URLTeam (https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/URLTeam) releases.

That way, when you shut down your service, we can figure out what some of these short links went to.

View on HN

> when you shut down

That's a reasonable assumption, since the service is not likely to be sustainable financially.

Why shouldn't it be sustainable? Seems like the sort of service where a freemium AGPL open source model might work quite well.

Agreed – the plan is to keep this running as long as possible, and the freemium AGPL model is a great way to get there in a sustainable pace! :)

Sorry for the pessimistic quip.

I love that it's open source, the site design is beautiful, and the service looks well made. Good luck!

Appreciate the kind words! :)

Best of luck!

Hosting costs money regardless of whether the underlying codebase is open source, but why would anyone pay for a URL shortener? Maybe those things had a use a decade ago but I don't see a use for them nowadays and definitely not enough to pay for one.

"but why would anyone pay for a URL shortener?"

If you are sending automated sms, to around phone carrier blocking people use bit.ly etc. A new domain would take a lot of testing.

As part of url derive process, you could kick off a process to archive the redirect with the Internet Archive. When you turn the service down, no further action is required. It can die at anytime and no one is worse off.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com