"www" is generally taken to mean (world-wide-)web server (as opposed to ftp, gopher, telnet, smtp, imap or just "mail" server). So you could say needing both "http(s)://" and "www" is redundant.
Similarly, http://ftp.company.com is a bit of a misnomer -- if it was an ftp server, you'd have to use "ftp://" -- but of course a single host might run several different daemons, or a daemon might speak several different protocols.
I can appreciate that for many people "www" and ".com" 'denotes a URL', and also agree that without context, "Something.anything" doesn't really look like an URL. I fail to see how that's a problem within the context of hypertext (where the expected behaviour is clicking a link).
http://ftp.company.com makes perfect sense. It is the http listing of the files stored on the server, linking to the actual files served using FTP. FTP isn't made for dynamic content and the file list is just that. The main role of the domain is FTP serving, though.
I'm sure the billions using the Internet won't be able to answer what "www" and ".com" stand for, but does it matter? I agree about the hyperlinks and some browsers (Safari) don't even show the URL so the domain becomes less and less important today, but on TV, print, and so on, the domain and the URL still matter and people know "www" and ".com" better than "http://", which is not shorter and is pretty cryptic as well.
Similarly, http://ftp.company.com is a bit of a misnomer -- if it was an ftp server, you'd have to use "ftp://" -- but of course a single host might run several different daemons, or a daemon might speak several different protocols.
I can appreciate that for many people "www" and ".com" 'denotes a URL', and also agree that without context, "Something.anything" doesn't really look like an URL. I fail to see how that's a problem within the context of hypertext (where the expected behaviour is clicking a link).
[Ed:spelling]