A 99 USD commercial web API. This one, and their other endpoints, require being part of paid Apple Developer program. I understand, but it's frustrating if you're wanting to play around or use in free open source.
Once upon a time businesses had to submit paper work verifying their business to a registrar to get an SSL cert. It wasn't just about encryption but also identity.
I remember as late as 2004 trying to scrounge up copies of our business license to fax or mail into our registrar.
Today the SSL cert has lost it's identity aspect and is just a sign of secure communication, not trusted.
> Once upon a time businesses had to submit paper work verifying their business to a registrar to get an SSL cert. It wasn't just about encryption but also identity.
And those policies made it impossible for personal and hobbyist sites to use secure communications, while doing very little to actually prevent abuse. (Most of the apparent "success" of these policies was simply because the motivations for abuse were lower at the time.)
Originally SSL required identity verification and financial costs were very high.
Fraudulent SSL certs weren't a thing because the barrier to entry way so high and the rewards for spoofing a site were low since e-commerce was insignificant.