Compared to about 10 years ago I have noted a shift towards frameworks using the style of routing that decouples the URL path from the filesystem. This is typically accomplished with the help of a front-controller pattern.
Namely, when before, URL path was mapped directly to the file system and therefore reflected exact files and folders on disk, nowadays, the actual URL paths are programmed to be directed to specific classes via configuration, and as such, no longer reflect the file system folder and file structure.
Question
How and why did this become commonplace? How and why was it decided that it's "better" to the point where once-commonplace direct-to-file approach was effectively abandoned?
Other Answers
There is a similar answer here that goes a bit into the concept of route and some benefits and drawbacks: With PHP frameworks, why is the "route" concept used?
But it does not address historical change aspects, or how or why this change gradually happened, to where any new projects nowadays are pretty much using this new routing style pattern and direct-to-file is outdated or abandoned.
Also, most of those benefits and drawbacks mentioned, do not appear to be significant enough to warrant such a global change. The only benefit that I can see driving this change perhaps is hiding the file/folder system from end-user, and also lack of ?param=value¶m2=value, which makes URLs look a tad cleaner. But were those the sole reason for the change? And if yes, why were those reasons behind it?
Examples:
I am most familiar with PHP frameworks and many popular modern frameworks use this decoupled routing approach. To make it work you set up URL rewriting in Apache or similar web server, to where web application functionality is typically no longer triggered via a direct-to-file URL path.
Zend Expressive
https://docs.zendframework.com/zend-expressive/features/router/aura/
https://docs.zendframework.com/zend-expressive/features/router/fast-route/
https://docs.zendframework.com/zend-expressive/features/router/zf2/Zend Framework
https://docs.zendframework.com/zend-mvc/routing/
Laravel
https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/routing
CakePHP
Best Answer
In its most basic form, a website serves static files. Mapping the URL path to a file path is the most obvious choice; essentially, it's a read-only FTP site.
Then people wanted to change the content of the page with some scripting. The easiest way is to embed a scripting language into the page and run it through an interpreter. Again, given the already existing path -> file path routing, this was simple enough.
But really, you are running that file as an argument to the interpreter now. You have to identify when the request is for a static file and when it's for something that you need to interpret.
Once you start to use more advanced compiled languages, you are even more divorced from the file location.
Plus, your web server is already caching static files and doing all sorts of optimizations, that means hitting the file system is the exception rather than the rule. At this point, the old link file system path is more of a hindrance than a help.
But I think the real sea change came when users wanted to get rid of the file extension from the path. Getting myPage.asp or myPage.php was somthing that confused 'normal' people and interfered with SEO.
Because the user sees the path, it has become part of the UI of the web, and as such, it needs to be completely free of any technical limitations. We have lost the 'www' and virtually everything is a '.com'. Multiple URLs will point to the same page.
If I make more money with mydomain.com/sale vs www.mydomain.co.uk/products/sale.aspx, then I don't want any technical limitations to stand in my way.