Actually, it's orthodox; and it's fetch that isn't. FreeBSD is actually the odd one out, for having an extra tool for doing the same thing. The ftp tool in all of the BSDs, including FreeBSD, speaks HTTP, and has done since Luke Mewburn did lukemftp (later to be named tnftp) and Theo de Raadt did likewise, both based on the original 4.2BSD ftp, back in the middle 1990s.
* https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/tree/contrib/tnftp/ChangeLog#n1...
* https://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/usr.bin/ftp/main.c?...
* https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/log/src/usr.bin/ftp/main.c,v?sort...
Nice! Thank you, that explains it. FreeBSD was my first *BSD and the only one I had long-term contact with, so I unconsciously use it as my "BSD standard". My bad on that :)