It's a stand in for something "not for humans". On second thought, monkeys would require an even easier UI. Perhaps "people that like pain".
I don't think it's fair to say the other tools weren't designed, or merely designed the easy way.
urllib2 has some rough edges - and some things should be better, but it can also do some things requests can't do, and I've had to reach for it on a few occasions.
requests has basically optimized for the easy case, where
urllib2 wished to be more flexible in certain areas, so it deserves some merit there too.
I don't think it's fair to say the other tools weren't designed, or merely designed the easy way.
urllib2 has some rough edges - and some things should be better, but it can also do some things requests can't do, and I've had to reach for it on a few occasions. requests has basically optimized for the easy case, where
urllib2 wished to be more flexible in certain areas, so it deserves some merit there too.