Some verified certificates are not free. As far as I know, Let’s Encrypt does not offer any ev/ov certs. I’ve worked for e-commerce sites that could not use standard dv certs like you would get from Let’s Encrypt.

Granted this is still not a good reason to give money to GoDaddy.

This sounds about right. My parents only use their browsers. They literally do not use any applications outside of the browser. They would be just fine on Linux but change is scary and everything just works.

Most normies will never pay for a search engine. I’ve tried and tried to show them the advantages of Kagi but the value just isn’t there for them. I ditched Google for Kagi long ago and I couldn’t be happier.