I am born in 1999, I remember having to write “www.” before my website in the address bar otherwise it would not work. Later in elementary school it no longer needed to be done to access the website. What happened?
In: Technology
Sites need to be set up to have a record for the non-`www` name to work. Forgetting to set one up would be an easy mistake to make, especially with typing `www` being so common. Both the web server itself and the name records (via DNS) need to be present. Arguably it’s the user’s fault for not typing the correct name, as the historical standard has been to use names in the general form “`servicetype.companyname.com`”, and you didn’t specify what service type you wanted.
Today, nothing has really changed technically, beyond how popular web browsers are for doing… everything. The web browser is how we interact with the internet in most situations, so the convention has bled into assuming that if no service is typed then the user wants `www`. It’s not a user mistake to leave it out, it’s the server’s mistake for not handling it if the user doesn’t type it.
I could totally make a web site that requires you to type the `www.` bit on the URL. But if I’m a business and customers are having a harder time finding my web site, that’s my problem.
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