While many URLs are not designed for human consumption, many are, and many users are "trained" to some degree to understand them. But most importantly, users n

While many URLs are not designed for human consumption, many are, and many users are "trained" to some degree to understand them. But most importantly, users need some visual (or auditory, if sight-impaired) cue as to what kind of site their on, what domain at the very least. That's why HN puts the domainname of the authority of any posted links next to the title. Regarding URLs that are not designed for human consumption, if they can possibly land in the status bar, then that's on their designers. Yes, of course, that's exactly what malicious players will do: design URLs that users can't parse -- but that's no reason to hide the bar altogether, but rather to hide parts of the URL (e.g., the scheme, the credentials, maybe the fragment, the query, even the path -- everything but the authority).