Yes it does. You seem to be living under a rock too asking that question. Here, let me Google that for you:

https://www.google.com/search?q=why+use+https

How hard is it, now that we have had free certs via letsencrypt and the certbot tool to automate vhost configuration to have encrypted and signed data transfer?

It's a matter of 2 minutes to add.

What excuse do you have to not use https?