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I don't think so. A long time ago in first days of the internet websites were no more widley used than other protocols such as ftp or telnet. a domain may have sub domains such as ftp.example.com, telnet.example.com or www<a>.example.com</a>. but example.com itself would not be used, since then websites are the main protocole used and people started to make example.com respond to websites. so really we don't need www anymore but best to redirect it just in case