Actually, these Unix-alike conventions of filenames just being NUL-terminated sequences of bytes/16-bit words come from the same thinking that gave us the conce

Actually, these Unix-alike conventions of filenames just being NUL-terminated sequences of bytes/16-bit words come from the same thinking that gave us the concepts of files just being length-counted sequences of bytes that it was up to applications softwares to interpret and impose structure upon. They were reactions to the more structured access methods of the day.