In an ideal world, users would look at something they don't understand and figure it out. Not to a level of mastering all the underlying concepts, but to the level of becoming functional with it. In an ideal world, we don't feel the urge to hide something we think the user will not understand. Instead, in an ideal world, we teach the user. Be it by presenting the subject in ways the underlying concepts become clear and obvious, be it in showing them progressive levels of functionality and abstraction. In an ideal world, users are intelligent, curious and do not feel the urge to run away from things, they feel, are too complex for them.

It's disturbing when someone advocates the idea of dumbing down what is a powerful idea in order not to upset those who think they would be upset, preventing them from learning something useful.

I use URLs for many things, from describing database connections to navigating hierarchical datasets in data-driven visualization tools. There is a lot to it beyond HTTP.

The Internet is not a blue "e". It's not a place of consumption, but one of sharing.

And when it becomes distributed, like you say, URLs could really serve us well, not by mapping to server:port/folder/document.html but to content and letting the underlying, non-http protocols, work out what's the best place to get the resource you need. You say "in the future" but p2p file-sharing networks use URLs in the form of network://hash-to-what-you-want.

If you assume your users are stupid, not only will you limit you product to those who know little, but you will rob them the possibility of learning something.

By ideal world I meant 'a better internet user experience within the next a decade or two' not 'all people are intelligent' as you meant. In the latter we would not be crouching over a browser anyway but do more evolved stuff :)

We do not teach users what an URL is when all she wants is to read her emails, just as you do not teach them how that browser is written or how the data travels to and from destination. I share your wish that people would be more inquisitive and learn but some people are just not like that for various reasons or do not have time for that and trying to teach them stuff they do not care about flies in the face of good user experience.

You use URL for many things including DB connections, this makes you a technical person. One of the reasons user experience is still shit in many applications is that many techies are convinced the user should be exposed to all the wonders of the underlying technology and consider this the noble quest of teaching them.

Yes - network://hash-of-what-you-want is the content addressability I mentioned. So the 'locator' in URL is not going to be meaningful. You do not locate a resource, you get some stuff wherever it may be located - assuming it is in one single place and not built from bits located in various parts. Anyway it was a tangent to the main topic - even if we denote the content someway it should not be exposed to your users.

Try asking around your non-tech relatives and see if they understand what the components of simple web url-s are. My mom sure does not, and I have no intention of teahcing her that .com is some silly legacy from when it was thought that if you are a company that is what your webpage address, will be named like or what is with the slashes or even worse the ampersands.

I do not assume users are stupid, they just don't give a shit about stuff that is cruft and that has little bearing on what they actually do on the web.

The fact that tiny URLs are such widespread also underlines the fact that URL is a necessary evil by which you send someone to a resource and not something to inspect by people. There are complaints about them being opaque but much less then you'd expect given their massive use.

So do not try to teach people who do not care about learning because they will not learn and you'll have wasted your time on them.

> trying to teach them stuff they do not care about flies in the face of good user experience

The worry about "user experience" is the cholesterol-rich fast-food of design. It's terrible, dumbs users down, but, somehow, it's addictive. Imagine a world of immediate gratification and zero frustration. That's what many people are tying to build.

> they just don't give a shit about stuff that is cruft

Not everything you don't grasp, or that was decided before you were born, is cruft.

> The fact that tiny URLs are such widespread

Tiny URLs are a reaction against poorly-designed, overly complex URLs that convey little or no meaning. Nobody needs Bit.ly to go to http://www.google.com. I'm all in for not failing when a user fails to type http://, but I am completely against hiding it under a magical hood that will protect users from the dangerous unknown techniques under it.

Knowledge is power and, therefore, it belongs to the people. The better it's distributed, the better.