It's turning out that HTTPS is more important for content integrity than for security. It's not surveillance that's the big problem for static content. It's middle boxes designed with the delusion they're entitled to mess with the content.
> It's not surveillance that's the big problem for static content.
Why would you say this? Surveilling what URLs someone is accessing / content they are watching / books they're checking out of the library has been a major security issue, historically.
HTTPS doesn't conceal the domain, or the length, or the order of requests. It's less of an issue for Google, because so much stuff comes from one domain. For small sites, figuring out who read what isn't a hard problem. In practice, you can probably buy that info from an ad tracking service.
You didn't qualify your claim as only pertaining to small sites. You simply said surveillance is not the big problem for static content. Given that most static content is served by large sites and the article is about Youtube, you haven't really supported that claim.
I'd temper that statement significantly. Content integrity is the visible consequence of improved HTTPS compliance and use.
The biggest factor about surveillance is that you are rarely aware you're being surveilled. Direct evidence is rarely present.
Case in point, Michael Lewis's Flyboys. HFT trades intercepts weren't being overtly signalled, but were only evident when trades were structured such that they bypassed the opportunity to intercept intentions at the first market.
