The URL doesn't contain the ID, it _is_ the id. If you stop treating the URL as an opaque string but start parsing things out, you are definitely not getting an

The URL doesn't contain the ID, it _is_ the id. If you stop treating the URL as an opaque string but start parsing things out, you are definitely not getting any benefits. One benefit of using urls as ids is that it no longer is just an id, it also describes where you can get it's representation.