The analogy in my mind has always been that of the command line. Most users these days do not use the command line. But many tech people still do, as it is a very effective tool.

Likewise, the address bar - I still hand-type most of the sites I regularly use, because I can type them faster than navigating my various bookmark folders. Which also negates any inspiration to find better bookmarking tools.

I also have the unfortunate job of maintaining SharePoint sites, for which there are many standard URL strings I can throw onto a site that will get me to various admin pages.

I am sure other platforms have similar structures, where hand-typed addresses can manipulate the site in some way to the benefit of those who support it.

And maybe that is where Google will end up - with the address bar being the command-line-equivalent for their web-based OS.