Having (re)implemented FTP for LIBWWW, I can assure you that it was done for very good reason.
FTP is not really an independent protocol. It is actually designed as a feature add on for Telnet. As a result, FTP is vastly less efficient than HTTP because you have two socket creations and teardowns per connection.
FTP needs only N+1 connections per set of N transfers from a given site.
You should never need to close and reopen the control connection unless you leave the site.
FTP requires multiple control plane interactions where HTTP requires only one.
You can specify an entire transfer with one command.
FTP has no provision for transfer of metadata.
FTP has both records and data structures.
FTP doesn't support proxying or caching, both of which were essential in the early Web when bandwidth was severely constrained.
FTP has third party transfers, which are a much more powerful mechanism than simply proxying. It can cache just like HTTP can (that’s an implementation issue) - and can prefetch too:
Joe
