And in several cases, I just wonder why make the site /forum https only?? Paranoia?
it is largely part of an effort to make the web more secure.
Obviously, websites like, say, a bank website, amazon, ebay, or other sites involving sensitive information like Credit Card numbers and the like are a shoe-in for HTTPS, as you alluded.
But- HTTPS is also faster than HTTP, so it means less server load, especially paired with the new HTTP/2, which only works over https. So even from a perspective of browsing speed, there is already a good reason.
From the side of a website owner, HTTPS sites also get rank preference by Major Search Engines.
The logic is more or less that there no longer is any particularly good reason *not* to encrypt everything. What I mean is, while sending insensitive information over a secure channel is pointless, it also does no harm, which means that by encrypting everything, it's no longer determined by the website creator what you consider to be sensitive information. For example, "I'd much rather this data be transmitted over the wire in an easy to intercept plain text form" doesn't make much sense. Even if you are reasonably certain that nobody is going to care or intercept that information, there is no benefit from transmitting it in plaintext, and a number of advantages to the converse.
As for browsing on old computers, that just comes with the territory of vintage systems, I think. I have a number of older systems as well but I'd rather the web move forward and leave them behind than restrict new capabilities/features in order to allow them to function. Even ignoring HTTPS, the web has already moved beyond what browsers on older systems are capable of, and in many cases what the system can handle as well. At this point using some older systems on the modern Web is sort of like trying to get a Tandy-101 to use the WWW in say the 90's rather than a BBS.
