This hits the nail on the head exactly. It's a vicious cycle. Let's Encrypt are perhaps one of the only players in a good position to make a real difference he

This hits the nail on the head exactly. It's a vicious cycle. Let's Encrypt are perhaps one of the only players in a good position to make a real difference here. I don't see any other CAs implementing ACME for S/MIME (https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-acme-email-smime-04 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-acme-email-smime-04) and offering free certs.