"People realize that securing the transport isn't the same as securing the application, which often hops over multiple transports."
Exactly right. Application layer trust, with the transport and security layers abstracted away. This is important, since app developers typically can't control the transports from end to end, or at scale.
This pattern of burying TLS inside of application payloads is popping up all over the place. People realize that securing the transport isn't the same as securing the application, which often hops over multiple transports.