I think ever since firefox came out with the amazing bar and google became the new http they have had to rank domain names high in the SERPS, as there is always a chance that that is what you are looking for if you put it into your browser address bar.
However, it is not beyond thinking that google will rank things differently depending on how you search. Searching on a mobile phone provides different results to searching on your desktop. So why not searching from your browser location bar giving different results to searching from the google homepage? With the google homepage giving less relevance to domain names as a signal.
I am sure Google are more than capable of being data led and seeing if those things correlate and making the necessary changes.
Other ways in which domain names become less relevant are through such things as apps and social media games. Take instagram as an example. An online business that made its name before it even had a domain name. It was a solid app, searched for and shared through the mobile phone market places and then via facebook.
With the battle from facebook to essentially become your desktop and the entire internet - like AOL tried doing many years back, in which everything should be run through their systems and their framework I hope that domain names do not become obsolete as the prospect scares me a little.
First time posting here.
Figured I had to start somewhere.
