It is by design:
If a view is not found, web2py tries to use a generic view. By default, generic views are disabled, although the 'welcome' app includes a line in /models/db.py to enable them on localhost only. They can be enabled per extension type and per action (using response.generic_patterns). In general, generic views are a development tool and typically should not be used in production. If you want some actions to use a generic view, list those actions in response.generic_patterns (discussed in more detail in the chapter on Services).