An even larger problem is IMHO that the two most widely deployed platforms world-wide (Windows XP and Android < 3) do not support SNI which forces you to use one IP address per domain.
So now we are moving to protocols that mandate SSL while at the same time we are quickly running out of IP addresses (and getting correctly working ipv6 on the two platforms in question is about as difficult as getting them to support SNI)
$0; use StartSSL. They're in the trusted root CAs for Chrome and Firefox which are the only browsers that support SPDY so far (I think they're trusted in all major browsers, but I don't spend my day examining IE6's list of trusted CAs)
The actual cost is in requiring a dedicated IP per SSL site, which many hosts charge monthly for. Unless SNI is built into the spec (I browsed around briefly and didn't see a mention, other than a request for it being a requirement in a forum mid-2011), anyone intending to host multiple HTTP2.0/SPDY sites on the same box will need to buy a dedicated IP per domain. It's also something of a pain to add SNI support to an existing host, but so will adding the SPDY support.
Like most (all?) digital products, the price of SSL certificates will converge to zero with higher usage. So mass adoption might be beneficial after all.
I believe the Internet should stay free, and making your own website should certainly stay free.
Right now, you don't have to have a domain. You don't have to pay for a SSL certificate. You don't have to pay for hosting. The only thing actually need you pay for is the link to the ISP.
And it's not like there weren't better, free alternatives either. Ultimately it's not about the price tag. It's about having a third party controlling your stuff. It's more about freedom than free as in beer.
SSL needs to verify the site's identity to be effective, period. For a certain level of trust (EV certs, for example) that requires humans doing work, at least for now. Humans cost money. StartSSL's free certs work perfectly well for non-EV requirements, which basically amount to a verification level of "someone who can read email on this domain has requested a cert for it" - which can be, and is, completely automated and therefore available for free.
First of all, everyone wants the benefits of HTTP/2.0, obviously. Else I'd be using gopher, thank you very much.
Then, startssl is a company, that happens to give free certs. For one single sub-domain. Got two subdomains? Gotta pay.
They can also decide to make those non-free at any given moment, if they feel like it.
The only part I agree with, is paying for EV certificates. But you should NOT need to pay and you should NOT need a third party to be responsible for YOUR certificates if you do not want to.
And again, there's quite a few distributed trust models around that work well and do exactly that, but get great push back from vendors, since, by nature, they don't bring as much money back.
It took me a minute to figure out that "what do you mean, not free? Surely wordpress will just buy a *.wordpress.com certificate?" was not what you're going for.
I understand the pain of deploying SSL with shrink wrapped software, but that should not be a reason for us to just say "oh f... it, let's just talk to our devices using plain text and adopt hope as our new security model".
My original statement still stay, with mass adoption of SSL we will have new challenges and will find new solutions.
but that should not be a reason for us to just say "oh f... it, let's just talk to our devices using plain text and adopt hope as our new security model".
That sounds to me like the exact solution you are proposing.
If I'm selling lightbulbs with webservers built-in in an "only SSL signed by a CA" universe, I can only let people talk to it with plaintext and hope no one breaks in.
Right now I can sell lightbulbs with built-in webservers that people can talk to secretly. And with TACK I could keep someone from dropping in on me.
