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Comment by sukilot | Hacker News Reader

Let's distinguish between obfuscating the query parameters, the the path, and the domain. They are different things, and the domain name especially is a major security boundary.

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Most of what I mentioned did obfuscate the domain name. Users do not care about domain name security boundaries - that's yet again an implementation detail. An important one, but still not something most users recognize or care about. Hence, you know, why phishing is so successful.

Users used to care about paths and other descriptors. A decade ago, we were fighting for human readable resource locators. However, users have been taught progressively to ignore them as too complex. (Just the same as it happened for any advanced, but user accessible browser controls.) Why is it that 25 years into web usage, any controlled access is deemed too complicated? (Mind that other technologies were already approaching the end of their lifespan at a similar age. The web is neither new nor disruptive anymore.)

Why is it that 25 years into web usage, any controlled access is deemed too complicated?

Two words: corporate greed. It's so much easier to persuade and herd them to where they can be "monetised" when they don't know how things work, nor can't figure out how and where to learn.

Somehow the knowledge industry has turned into dumbing down as a business. There's a TV ad for a smart speaker integrated car, showing a hip, but managerial type man downloading the route to his workplace to his car by a voice command from home and subsequently happily arriving at work. – How do you manage to make a living, if you can't memorize you daily drive from home to work? How is this a product? Has augmentation of human intellect turned into a zero-sum game?

I use navigation to avoid heavy traffic. Most of the time it changes nothing but sometimes saves 30 minutes of driving.

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