> simply searching and reading articles Encryption protects against an eavesdropper logging what you read. > It should be down to the owner of the site if the

> simply searching and reading articles Encryption protects against an eavesdropper logging what you read. > It should be down to the owner of the site if they want to add SSL The owner of the site shouldn't also be able to force others to drop their protections against eavesdropping. There are two parties to each conversation. > There's hardly any overhead involved if you add to the browsers page parsing routines That only covers a small subset of threat models. Passwords and other credentials are not the only data that needs protection. Thanks to Lets Encrypt, enabling encryption has hardly any overhead. Most of the problems are outdated software and hosting services. Encryption is important not only for personal safety, it's also needed to protect against threats like China's Great Cannon[1]. Choosing to say with plaintext is socially irresponsible because the decision about using encryption is also about providing ammunition for the Great Cannon. [1] https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/ https://citizenlab.org/2015/04/chinas-great-cannon/