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I'd be curious the real reasons for this, because the reasons listed in this press release sound like marketing-speak.

Exactly what I was thinking as I read it.

letsencrypt destroying their business model, they are trying to find new sources of income.

I didn't look in the last few months, but most definitely when I did last look the reality is that Let's Encrypt and the strongly related "HTTPS Everywhere" movement actually drove growth for the _entire CA industry_

This is undoubtedly at least in part due to a halo effect. If Alice and Bob have $0 Let's Encrypt certs for their blogs about, respectively, an obscure species of tree frog and restoring muscle cars, when Carol asks them if her new business "needs" an SSL certificate they are more likely to say "Yes" rather than "Not really" or "I don't know what that is". Even if most Carols use Let's Encrypt, any who don't are new customers for a commercial CA.

I think that a lot of small customers moved from commercial CAs to letsencrypt. I don't even know a single reason not to use letsencrypt now. Sure, there will be new customers, but I'm not sure about old customers and it'll be worse as existing customers slowly would learn about free letsencrypt and migrate to it.

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