You can't very well call it redundant when it's not possible to leave it off. There's no reason for a tld today. Every keyword should be a TLD, no reason you shouldn't go to http://microsoft
I see your point (imagine an alternate future where websites are uncommon, for instance), but I would expect that a very large number of URLs will persist and remain live for quite some time into the future. So that TLD must be viewed in a context where other TLDs
As it stands, TLDs are not used for their intended respective purposes in practice (.com for commercial, country codes, etc), so expecting this situation to suddenly change is unrealistic. I would expect, in fact, that the most successful uses of .website will be by smartasses for IRC, email, etc.
But given that that's not possible, http://microsoft.website would be better than http://microsoft.com except on historical grounds.
Do you know what "com" stands for? Commercial? Would you believe me if I made a convincing argument that it stands for something else - probably.