The common wisdom about the origin of life in the astrobiology community defines habitability as the presence of liquid water at the surface of a planetary body. It has become usual to define a habitable zone as the range in which a temperature compatible with liquid water can be maintained at the surface without leading to a runaway greenhouse effect. The requirement for the presence of liquid water is based (i) on the need of a solvent to facilitate migration of reactants originating from different environments, (ii) on the very specific properties of water in promoting hydrophobic interactions that have an essential role in molecular recognition and structure formation and (iii) on its specific ability to dissolve ions and to facilitate proton exchanges occurring during many organic reactions. The observation of terrestrial life present far from the surface of the ocean raised the hypothesis that life could emerge in the proximity of hydrothermal systems considered of potential sources of reducing power and organic matter. The astrobiology relevance of this hypothesis was strengthened by the discovery of deep oceans under the surface of icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. However, this possibility is challenged by the recent introduction of an analysis of conditions for chemical self-organization. In agreement with the view that far from equilibrium conditions are essential for dissipative processes, the reproduction pathways on which life is based must proceed in a kinetically irreversible way. It is concluded that systems capable of delivering the corresponding energy potential could hardly be present in the environment of deep oceans.