For what it's worth, this post is from 2004. Even with that in mind, this is not a verbatim conversation; the style is Socratic inquiry.

Two points: One, the post is from 2004, so maybe she could remember a time when typing that was required (I wouldn't know - I was too young to be using the internet at that time).

Second, this conversation seems to have been "enhanced" for the sake of the blog post, so it's quite possible that all the details aren't 100% accurate. Some of her questions seem a tad too convenient.

The article was written in 2004, but even today, a lot of advertisements, name cards, and other types of printed material still contain URLs that begin with http and www. As a result, some people still type in all those characters when they want to look up a web site. In fact, this practice might be more common among non-tech-savvy people (such as the wife in this story) than among HNers (who know which parts of a URL are optional).

I don't think it was ever required (even when it was shown), but people still typed it.