I understand that too, but most of the people I saw talking about tr.im were saying "Go figure" not "Please stay". This on top of the asking bit.ly for money rather than saying "Ok" to keep the links working, while complaining about money issues.
It seems like this was a ploy to get people's attention for tr.im so they could try to sell it.
Why would they want to give their work to a company that cuddled up to Twitter thanks to connections and took the entire market in a matter of months? I'd want some money out of that too.
I understood the bit.ly absorption to be more of a courtesy than an attempt to profit. Giving their redirects to a company that has the infrastructure and the long term support to keep them on-line, rather than just let them go dark, would be responsible and really wouldn't help bit.ly increase it's user base at all.
It seems like this was a ploy to get people's attention for tr.im so they could try to sell it.