Its intentional, in part because of all the mayhem caused by Python2's "free-spirited" view on whether a thing is bytes or text. And that "free-spirited" view

Its intentional, in part because of all the mayhem caused by Python2's "free-spirited" view on whether a thing is bytes or text. And that "free-spirited" view caused A LOT of mayhem. Python3 errs on the side of not converting bytes to strings or vice versa unless its an explicit conversion on the bytes/string object itself. And it is fan-fucking-tastic!