Unsung heroes: Flickr’s URLs scheme
I really do love a good URL scheme. The first time I was blown away by an elegant scheme was Jira, back around 2010 I think. They incorporated ticket numbers directly in the path, and I had a brief flicker of "wait, they can do that now?" (at that point, URL routers weren't ubiquitous, and URLs often had to be implemented as a physical file structure.)
URLs remain such a powerful form of UI, even after the industry's pivot to "mobile (app) first". Even to this day, people always aren't in a hurry to download your company's app, and a lovely URL can be so expressive - so much kinder to humans than "robot throwup" QR codes.
(And don't get me started on ?fbclid privacy-breaking tracking nonsense; I wouldn't be QUITE so resentful if they weren't so long and winding - no GUID needs to be that long.)
