Even a perfectly inelastic (vertical) demand curve still intersects the supply curve at some price.

In other words, even if I would pay infinite dollars for a widget, I would still purchase from the cheapest supplier.

Why would the current design be at a local maximum in the first place?

HTTPS protects against MITM attacks.

When the owner of the domain originally obtained a certificate, the obtained signed attestation from a trusted provider that they were able to field requests to that domain. Those requests can come from anywhere and are not possible to MITM. This attestation pertains to a public key/private key pair.

The most an attacker might be able to view is the addresses of the sites you are connecting to.

You mention competitive markets, where surplus is reduced or almost eliminated. But most markets do not reach such a late stage level of optimization.

And bringing currency into the equation doesn’t change the fact that the plumber is better off for engaging in the trade.

Not all ways of spending money create the same value. He could also spend the money by burning it, which would be negative sum.

I would imagine that a firm is incentivized to want to know where their team members are leaving gaps.

And if you struggle for years with chronic back problems and doctors don't really have an answer except to prescribe addictive painkillers and then you see a chiro and everything is cleared up in a couple days?

Telling me that's a coincidence is just gaslighting.

Sorry, I have no clue what confluence of political/cultural forces have led to the inability of science to figure out how/why this stuff works.

Maybe in another 40 years. Good luck!