Based on those links, it doesn't look like Google is trying to get rid of URLs. It looks more like they're trying to make sure that URLs can still be used to locate content and ensure it hasn't been tampered with, but removing the need for browsers to make a round-trip to the origin server to retrieve it.
If anything this has the potential to help further decentralise the web, by allowing users to retrieve content via whatever protocol works best for them, without losing the benefits of URLs.
At work I develop mapping apps for projects which are shared using a URL in an email. This can be confusing for people as they have no intuitive way of knowing if data is live or not. It is very useful to have URLs that record a moment in time for record purposes. But people also sometimes expect the data to update automatically to the current version. You also, have issues with authentification and user accounts being needed.
Normally when you share a document on email it is very intuitive. People realise that it is not live data, and that they can share it with anyone over email. It would be good to have a web package format that could be sent by email and treated like a normal document. But also benefit from server based resources when neccessary.
> It would be good to have a web package format that could be sent by email and treated like a normal document
I'm setting up a static server to deal with hosting analyses purely because there's no current good solution to this and my approach otherwise is "tell people to download then open this html file" which is merely bad for techies but atrocious for non-techies.
I would absolutely love a format I can deliver some HTML + bits of data in that's treated just like any normal document that can be sent around.
I want to try something like this with a plain HTML file. It would need a way to include data that is not processed by the browser at load time, but selectively processed in JavaScript when needed.
If anything this has the potential to help further decentralise the web, by allowing users to retrieve content via whatever protocol works best for them, without losing the benefits of URLs.