I need my space!

Why is the space character so hated by the internet? How is it that in cyberspace, the one thing you won't find is a space? At least not in domain names. But why, exactly? It's just another character. Surely if we are going to bother translating numerical IP addresses to a human-readable form at all, we might as well go that extra yard and actually make it pronounceable as well.

The whole point of punctuation is that it increases clarity and reflects the natural rhythms of speech. But with a domain name, you are forced into the ridiculous position of having to explicitly state each non-alphanumeric character. Is it pennyarcade or penny-arcade? Worldofwarcraft or world-of-warcraft? And what do we do about "Mamma Mia!"?

And while I'm on the subject, why do we still need to specify www? If I type "Luis Villazon" into my browser address bar, it works out that I meant to include the http:// but stupidly doesn't assume www. It also substitutes %20 for the space, which no domain name on Earth uses, rather than simply omitting it, and doesn't bother with a TLD suffix of any kind.

Of course, who still uses the address bar anyway? We all have Google right on the toolbar so it's much easier to just type something into that, even when you know the domain name perfectly well. Except that there are two problems with this.

1. It forces an extra step because I need to go to the results page first.

2. I can't force my domain to appear higher up the list, unless I pay for google adwords. DNS is just a lookup table that matches certain text strings to IP addresses. Why can't I just register "Luis Villazon" and have that match to my IP address, instead of www.luisvillazon.com?

Because the internet is stupid, that's why.