So, I'm definitely not against vanilla HTTP where appropriate, but here are three arguments for the "all must be encrypted, heretic!" side of things: 1. The va

So, I'm definitely not against vanilla HTTP where appropriate, but here are three arguments for the "all must be encrypted, heretic!" side of things: 1. The vast majority of web developers/IT people/etc. aren't really knowledgeable enough to make the call whether something actually needs to be encrypted. Very smart developers have told me they weren't worried about security because their application didn't hold any sensitive data. Sometimes this was because they thought emails and/or passwords weren't sensitive data. I've also had very smart people tell me they weren't worried about security because nobody had any incentive to hack their server. But there is always incentive for bad people to hack a server: even if they can't ransomware you, they can host botnets or child pornography. Having seen situations like this enough, I'm no longer even convinced that even I am correct when I think security isn't necessary. Maybe you're qualified to make that call, but even then, evaluating the system may be harder than just adding security.[1] 2. Just because your system doesn't need HTTPS now, doesn't mean it never will. YAGNI conveniently doesn't specify whether "A" stands for "Are" or "Aren't". In my experience, most systems involving HTTP do eventually have a requirement that passes sensitive data over HTTP, and it would be all-too-easy to forget that channel wasn't encrypted. 3. Even if you don't need encryption for yourself, do it for everyone else who does need encryption. Before HTTPS was required in every browser, users would happily submit their passwords over completely unencrypted channels. Now, browsers will give big warnings that hopefully prevent users from doing this. Those warnings probably aren't necessary if, for example, you're submitting an anonymous comment to a Disqus conversation. But it's important not to normalize clicking past those warnings for nontechnical users, because if they click past those warnings to post an anonymoust Disqus comment, they'll click past them to submit a password. And in a more political sense, normalizing encryption for stuff where it isn't important protects encryption for stuff where it is. "If you are encrypting you must be hiding something bad" is a dangerous narrative which is pervasive in politics, and default-on encryption is one of the best tools against that. [1] As an example of this, it appears that there are a few attack vectors in your own posts, which you either didn't think of or don't care about, but which I would very much care about as a user of your library catalog.