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Money is a big deal for ease-of-use and access. Tracking down a credit card and the necessary approvals to use it, even if the amount of money is no big deal, i
by jaas 7y ago
Money is a big deal for ease-of-use and access. Tracking down a credit card and the necessary approvals to use it, even if the amount of money is no big deal, is a lot of friction for many people. Could be corporate red tape, could be that you don't have a credit card. Could be because you're in a country where financial sanctions prevent you from transacting with a foreign CA.
All of this friction would lead to many sites not using HTTPS because it's just too much of a hassle. And it's the visitors to those sites that suffer most.
- tptacek 7y agoTLS certificates are free now and that is unlikely ever to change again.
- jaas 7y agoYou stated that it wasn't a problem before they were free: "I don't think money was ever the big deal in the real world that IETF people thought it was, but it sure drove a lot of dumb mailing list posts" I am pointing out that I disagree, it was a very big deal and it's why I created Let's Encrypt.
- tptacek 7y agoI think Lets Encrypt is a big deal. I think making TLS certificates free is a big deal in terms of getting people to deploy HTTPS. I don't think they're a big deal in terms of getting people to use some other protocol like DNSSEC instead. Sorry, I worded that imprecisely.