Specifically in those circumstances it's more important than normal; intranet, government, and PDF documents.

Intranet: bespoke documentation to internal processes verses generic documents used for reference.

Government: external references can be hijacked (asking for personal information) or may not represent the government but still have relevant info.

PDF documents: jumping around a PDF document (from a table of contents) is different than going to an external website. Especially if you don't have Internet access at that moment.

I think all of this is significantly more important since browser have been hiding more URLs.

Sure. Why not? If you're browsing a hotel you plan to stay at, you may want to spend some time learning about it before booking. Accidentally clicking an external link takes you away from that.

Techies will know to just open it in a new tab, but most will have to remember to browse back to the site manually. It can be a disruptive process.

> Do people think 'I'll follow this link - oh no wait a minute it's external I won't'?

Some do, sometimes. Or perhaps they'll think 'I won't follow this link - oh no wait a minute, it's external I will'.