When there's a large gap between an item's marginal cost and value to consumers, producers who capture a large amount of the difference are considered lucky or

When there's a large gap between an item's marginal cost and value to consumers, producers who capture a large amount of the difference are considered lucky or evil. This is an advantageous meme for consumers, and nearly everyone sees more individual consumption transactions than production transactions, so it's not going to go away, no matter how much more we drill people in economics. "They need to be somewhat expensive to not dilute the amount of valid certs." I don't understand you. The validity of a cert isn't dependent on its cost, though as you note, steps taken to ensure validity drive up cost. In any case, virtually no one is served by getting a more expensive cert these days, now that $50 and lower certs are available and just as trusted by browser manufacturers. The original idea that cert providers would verify actual identity has given way to the idea that certs only verify that the encryption really comes from the website itself, rather than some middleman. There's a place for business identification, but it's hard to do cheaply. Actually, it's hard to do at all, in a global marketplace.