This is false, there have always been ways to get a free DV cert, lets encrypt made it easier Furhter before Lets Encrypt you would not have gotten dinged by

This is false, there have always been ways to get a free DV cert, lets encrypt made it easier Furhter before Lets Encrypt you would not have gotten dinged by google, Google only went that path when wide spread DV Certs where freely avaliable Further still, the minor costs per year to get a paid DV cert should be factor when choosing to host your own content versus paying a 3rd party to do it, many of those 3rd parties provided SSL as part of their services. There is zero need for a Man in the Middle for SSL,