That is entirely untrue. HTTPS is just HTTP encrypted with TLS. The only parties that can decrypt the traffic are the people with the session keys: you and the website you’re visiting.
HTTPS and transport security isn’t a broken idea.
Standardized content security has been tried in many contexts and has typically been even less secure unless it’s for long lived opaque media, like S/MIME for emails. Structured data like XML security has been abysmal.