"At that point, the snooper is just like any other spy potentially sitting on the vast web of networks between you and the website or service you're connected to – and that's why we try to do HTTPS and other end-to-end encryption everywhere: to thwart naughty people lurking silently in the middle. "
Just a nitpick here... Unless your threat model is a nation-state attacker or similar (which, admittedly, it might very well be these days), your traffic is much more likely to get snatched near the endpoints than in the middle.
Even with compromised core routers at their disposal (which attackers certainly have), actually sniffing traffic in a useful way is - at best - difficult, risky and/oir noisy.
But still - just a nitpick. There's rarely any reason to let unencrypted traffic over the wider Internet these Days.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
