I run DecentURL.com, and have had basically the same experience. I made a few dollars off some "$7 premium services" for a while, but recently stopped running those as there just wasn't enough demand. Not that I made "selling" DecentURL a priority -- so I shouldn't say too much.

I'm turned off the ads-during-the-redirect thing, but I can see where it might be an effective money-maker.

I like what cli.gs is doing.