Because "URI" stands for "Uniform Resource Identifier" (or URL for "Locator"), not "Resource". The intent is for it to be a pointer, not the value at the location. And, if you were to use the URI as the content (instead of chunking and shrinking it via Bitly), you'd be duplicating that content on every page that links to it. And in your browsing history, by merely viewing it.

edit: oooh, another thought: you're essentially uploading the content of the page to view it.

There's an interesting copyright question in there somewhere too. If the URL for my document is the document then sharing the link is infringing my copyright, or something.

there is such a thing as fair use in copyright law (at least, in australia and US and most major western states).

I don't think there's any abuse here (after all, data: URIs exist). A value is just another kind of pointer.

The important thing is that the identified resource is unambiguously identified.

This is basically stealing bandwidth from sites like bit.ly, getting them to host your webpages for you.

There might be legitimate uses for this, right now I can't think of one. Clever hack though.

Is this really the case? Bit.ly would still have to forward the user over to the hashify.me site, where the hash would be decoded server-side and the content would have to be sent back over the wire to the client. That's still eating the same amount of bandwidth on hashify.me, no?

Bit.ly has to store the entire document encoded in base64 as the URL of the destination in their database in order to return to users the value of the given bit.ly URL hash. In essence, yes, bit.ly is storing the entire document on their servers anytime anyone shortens a hashify.me link.

Think if it like the difference between the postal service letting you know there is a package that you can go pick up at the post office, and the postal service giving you a package at your home or work that cannot be opened until you go to the store to buy a box cutter, but you have to bring the package with you.

The first example is cheap, since you only receive a pointer or link to where the package is, but you have to do all the work to get it. The second is not cheap, since if the package was a bed from Ikea (for a random large example), the postal service (bit.ly) has to deliver the package to you, and then you have to go somewhere (hashify.me) while carrying that package in order to see what's inside.

Ok, that makes sense. I thought we were debating on whether or not bit.ly incurred ALL the load and hashify.me incurred NONE, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Perhaps 'misuse' would have been better. It's certainly that.