diff --git a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
index 2bbcaf3ad..c1b77f4fb 100644
--- a/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
+++ b/scrapy/extensions/feedexport.py
@@ -290,7 +290,8 @@ class FTPFeedStorage(BlockingFeedStorage):
         feed_options: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None,
     ):
         u = urlparse(uri)
-        assert u.hostname
+        if not u.hostname:
+            raise ValueError(f"Got a storage URI without a hostname: {uri}")
         self.host: str = u.hostname
         self.port: int = int(u.port or "21")
         self.username: str = u.username or ""
diff --git a/scrapy/utils/iterators.py b/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
index baf92681a..03d779afb 100644
--- a/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
+++ b/scrapy/utils/iterators.py
@@ -85,7 +85,6 @@ def xmliter_lxml(
 
     reader = _StreamReader(obj)
     tag = f"{{{namespace}}}{nodename}" if namespace else nodename
-    # technically, etree.iterparse only needs .read() AFAICS, but this is how it's typed
     iterable = etree.iterparse(
         cast("SupportsReadClose[bytes]", reader), tag=tag, encoding=reader.encoding
     )