Sure, most of these decisions are too entrenched to be fixed.
But yes, URLs should have been structured. We already see paths rendered with breadcrumbs, the protocol replaced with an icon, `www` auto-inserted and hidden, and the domain highlighted. If that's not a structure, I don't know what is.
By cramming everything into the same string, we open ourselves to phishing attacks by domains like `www.google.com.evil.com`, malicious traversal, 404s from mangled relative paths, and much more.
But yes, URLs should have been structured. We already see paths rendered with breadcrumbs, the protocol replaced with an icon, `www` auto-inserted and hidden, and the domain highlighted. If that's not a structure, I don't know what is.
By cramming everything into the same string, we open ourselves to phishing attacks by domains like `www.google.com.evil.com`, malicious traversal, 404s from mangled relative paths, and much more.