To avoid a No True Scotsman impasse, who exactly are we talking about that doesn’t know what a zip file is? Someone who doesn’t use a laptop for their day job?
Someone like my mom, she knows Spreadsheets as green files, and other than the color and that they open Excel, for her they're the same as any other file (Windows default hiding extensions doesn't help either)
Recently, she asked me to put a set of documents into a folder (She meant a compressed file) because some page required it
I have always found it fascinating, considering she has worked with Office products for the last ~20 years
It's wild to me some of the things I never knew, even though I've been using Windows or DOS for probably 35 years.
For example, I recently learned you can't name a file CON. Try it. Somehow over all those decades, I've never tried to do this until Tom Scott made a video about it:
I'd wager that you're going to have low familiarity at best among people under 30[0] where computer use is ancillary to job at best, so all sorts of "technician" type jobs[1] plus warehouse work, transportation, and other public-facing roles like retail, police, fire...
I would make a weaker claim than "doesn't know what it is", there are probably a lot of people there who at one point have seen "files.zip" in gmail and then downloaded it and double clicked it to expand it or such, but I don't think any of them are going to be confused by URLs with .zip domains.
I'm actually curious about the intended distribution of this website - it's header is "If you clicked on this domain by mistake" but... I clicked on it very intentionally from an HN link, so didn't expect a file attachment at all; not sure what the scenario is where something could look like a file but actually be a link? E.g. if it's on a malicious website you could easily trick users with "Download stuff.zip" link text that actually points to "bobsmalware.com" or whatever, which works just as well for anyone loosely familiar with .zip files but not sophisticated enough to not trust the text vs the actual link pointer. Just like the original comment from `SimonPStevens says.
Recently, she asked me to put a set of documents into a folder (She meant a compressed file) because some page required it
I have always found it fascinating, considering she has worked with Office products for the last ~20 years