Re:Why Bother with What Three Words?
by alexbecker on Thursday March 28, 2019 @10:08PM
(#19518553)
For most users, the domain name system is only very nominally hierarchical--every domain name they see is of this form:
(www.)?[random-words].com
Really? My wife is ~70, and not all that technical, but she knows (for example) that "maps.google.com" is a Google URL. And she even knows that "mail.google.com.assholes.io" is not a Google URL.
It's just anecdotal, I know. But I find it hard to imagine that most people don't understand URL hierarchies. I mean, people who use computers commonly organize files in folders.
But maybe that's becoming a lost art, as most new users just have mobile devices.
No, it's not. It's actually more like the opposite. The domain name system is hierarchical, and W3W is clearly (and I gather, intentionally) not.
IP addresses are also hierarchical, but the mapping of domain names to them is only somewhat systematic.
Really, though, W3W identifiers are most like Tor onion names. Just hashes. Indeed, some have suggested replacing alphanumeric onion names with something like W3W.