> There was already talk of needing HTTPS everywhere. Snowden's release got more support behind it, and brought the timeline forward.

Google made HTTPS default-on in 2010, but there was a toggle so that you could disable the forced use:

* https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2010/01/default-http...

In 2014 the toggle was removed and all connections were forced to HTTPS.

The Snowden revelations occurred in 2013:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_disclosures