Some verified certificates are not free. As far as I know, Let's Encrypt does not offer any ev/ov certs. I've worked for e-commerce sites that could not use standard dv certs like you would get from Let's Encrypt.
Granted this is still not a good reason to give money to GoDaddy.
Check out the Dell Wyse 5070. You can find them used within your budget.
Rsync is what you're after, especially if you're moving large files. I regularly transfer hundreds of gb using rsync and it's great.
This is not spam. The blog post discusses a current hot topic. There's no advertising on the site. OP has nothing to gain by sharing this. Don't make people hesitate to post quality content just because the topic has been discussed elsewhere.
https://mxroute.com/ or https://www.fastmail.com/
I picked up a cheap lifetime account on mxroute a while back and have been pretty happy with it.
I remember Reddit. I used to like it there.