This indeed seems to be the main issue (which LetsEncrypt didn't need to worry about). Zero cost would necessarily mean that early users will hoard all the valu

This indeed seems to be the main issue (which LetsEncrypt didn't need to worry about). Zero cost would necessarily mean that early users will hoard all the valuable names, leading us back to square one. Human-recognizable names are a scarce commodity. Zero price would create a market distortion.