The problem with encryption is that it discourages interaction between hams (which is already pretty bad, tbh). Yes, you’re supposed to announce your callsign, but my bet is that unsavory characters would take advantage of that. I think it’s pretty cool to listen in on different protocols and see what people are trying out (M17 is an excellent example).

FHSS is pretty trivial to “decrypt” these days with an SDR.

While you’re not wrong about experimentation, I feel like ham radio should be focused more on the radio side of things rather than encryption implementations. Implementing the hardware and software encoding/decoding is the hard/fun part (at least to me). Encryption should come as a piece of cake after than if you can achieve a given bitrate.

And again - there already are bands that allow encryption. A couple hundred bucks and a few applications, and you’re free to go nuts.

And I completely forgot, but ISM bands do allow encryption, are free, and there is plenty of hardware out there readily available.