You could get one for under $10/y which is not what I’d call a fair bit of money. I think the problem with HTTPS/SSL was that it tried to solve two problems at

You could get one for under $10/y which is not what I’d call a fair bit of money. I think the problem with HTTPS/SSL was that it tried to solve two problems at once (trust and encryption) without a practical way to separate them. You can argue that’s justified (what’s the point knowing the connection is encrypted if you don’t know who is on the other side), but those panicky browser alerts made self signed SSL certificates all but useless. That’s why we need letsencrypt now.