My only defense is Safari on iOS - the screen is so small, showing the full URL even with the pathname grayed would make the URL seem bloated; at least seeing the real domain is better for security and UX. Can't defend the full URL being hidden by default on desktop, though.

I think the difference is market share. Chrome is at an estimate 60-70% of all worldwide browsing. On desktop, it is over 70%. As a result, most developers (the primary audience of Hacker News) use Chrome as their primary browser so they tend to see what their users do. Safari has a fraction of that; 15% overall and 5% on desktop. The truth is that this is being discussed with Google because it affects the vast majority of users whereas previous changes affected few (and even fewer in the Hacker News core audience)

Because Safari has a tiny user base?

The short, unkind answer is that people shrug because Safari is not big enough to care about. You'd see the same apathetic response if Microsoft hid URLs from Edge.

> collective shrug when Apple hides the URL, but if Google does so we get huge outrage and assumptions that this must clearly be done primarily for malicious reasons.

Who uses Safari? People depend on Chrome on all sorts of platforms. Screwing with the URL field affects millions of people.

I use desktop Safari because it is much more energy efficient than Chrome.

Safari usage is too low for most to rage about.