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.