In order to better appreciate the idea you have to understand the context of addressing during that time. Addressing was a major factor in the architecture impl

In order to better appreciate the idea you have to understand the context of addressing during that time. Addressing was a major factor in the architecture implemented at the time, for example CGI which executed dynamic scripts at the web server from a known fixed location. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface The web was invented so that supporting documents in research can be addressed via hyperlink, as opposed to just by citation, for more fluid understand of research material and technical documents. The hyperlink address of those supporting documents indicated where in the system those documents reside and that form of addressing was the basis of the URL. In later practice the URL would denote a service own via domain and a path on that server where documents reside. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Resource_Identifier As the idea for web standards began to emerge in the mid 90s there came the idea of the URI. URI does not represent a location, as in a URL, but instead a unique identity. The idea of URI became a parent taxonomy to existing things like URL, URN, ISBN, and so forth. The idea for URI was influenced by the idea of email addressing which was at the time already in wide use as both a unique identifier and an address location. An example of this idea worked directly into a technology is RDF. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framework https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Description_Framewo... Fielding was deeply involved in the work of addressing as he was co-authoring several of the related RFCs that would in several years get rolled up in RFC 3986, 5 years after the dissertation. The most influential idea introduced by REST is that as an architectural style an address can serve as an idea scheme instead of just document location on a distant server. Nobody cares where on a server a document resides so long as the address returns the intended content. Bigger still is that an address does not have to resolve or return anything to provide a variety of functional uses.