Why URLs won't die

[bill]

https://medium.com/re-form/why-won-t-urls-die-8d38f86e3ef3 [medium.com]

Why URLs won't die

The Uniform Resource Locator has been the user-interface lingua franca of the internet for decades. A browser window just wouldn’t look right without it up there at the top. But as the web has matured into a GUI-driven, mobile-first, app-serving consumer operating system in its own right, the URL stubbornly persists as an arcane, command-line-esque relic of the internet’s ultra-geeky origins. Why?

[Marshall]

Tradition!? (Let's all break into song) My question is why does it matter? After all, who pays attention and does it really affect anything beyond what you see in the browser bar? And using the argument that someone might notice a spoofed URL if it ends in something weird like .com.it, you are talking about people who click on links in emails saying "We need to transfer $5 million dollars...." Face it, changing domain[dot]com/whatever-blahblahblah to just domain[dot]com would probably only be noticed by webmasters.

Also, this sounds like a part of trying to convert/pressure all sites to use SSL, which I have nothing against, but who is Google or Apple or Microsoft or whomever to dictate to all of us how the internet should be.

Marshall

[lucy24]

Why?

Because I want it there, dammit.

[Webwork]

Because you can own it. Plant your flag on it. Shout out from it. Make up your own rules for playing on it. Put it up in lights, on billboards, on business cards. You can link to it all over the place. Share it. Do anything you want with it.

So long as you pay your renewal fees . . . groan . . .