I like that analogy :)

Another way to look at it is if you are in an accident, a seatbelt will 99.99% of the time stop you from being ejected from the car. A hard hat will prevent your skull from fracturing when hit in the head. Goggles keep foreign matter out of your eye. The SafeBrowsing blacklist prevents Chrome from automatically loading malicious payloads on unwary users. So in what way does hiding the URL measurably stop the dangerous action? It doesn't. A less hyperbolic parallel would be how cars have changed from showing gauges for engine performance and have only a single "check engine" light for any problem detected by the ECM.

That said I think this change is inevitable. My experience with non-technical users is that the URL is irrelevant Most do not know the difference between typing an address and typing a search phrase.

And: seatbelts have negligible downsides, and are very hard to use for any purpose other than accident restraint.

The analogy to hiding the URL would be something like a seatbelt that only unlatched at the car's stop only in neighborhoods it considered "safe".

Just to point out, in Brasil seatbelts are also required by law, so it´s not possible that "there are no seatbelts because it´s cheaper".