I've done WCAG / ADA work over the last two years and it's been a wake up call for government funded organizations and even small businesses, not to mention des

I've done WCAG / ADA work over the last two years and it's been a wake up call for government funded organizations and even small businesses, not to mention designers, developers and staff who manage content. From my experience, most of these lawsuits are "predatory" in nature. Law firm finds a sympathetic case, sues as many orgs as they can, and collects massive fees along the way while the web developers get thrown under the bus, or also collect massive fees (yay?!?). The same can be said for "workshops" that teach people about compliance. Passing automated WCAG tests, vs actually following the "spirit" of compliance are two completely different things. I've spent countless hours attempting to get my code to pass automated tests, just so when I pass back to the client they don't throw it back in my lap, despite my code being fully compliant and accessible. We also do design work, and work with external designers with no concept of accessibility. Often (most) times, clients dictate the design and often make decisions that violate accessibility rules. Color contrast, "wiz bang" features are the two most common violators. Full accessibility limits design freedom considerably. I met with a 100% government funded org just last week and told them their (hundred + page) site (no CMS) was not in any way compliant. You should have seen the look on their faces. They then proceeded to show me websites they like, to inspire a redesign project and NONE of them were even remotely compliant despite all the examples also being gov funded. 20-30% in the cost increase to make a new website project fully compliant. Retrofitting an old website? The cost could easily exceed the initial development. To be clear, I'm not saying websites should not be compliant, just that ... it's messy and the guidelines aren't always clear. Aggressive law firms are only making things worse. Final note: The accessibility capabilities of social networks are ... not good. Where do you post transcriptions of your Facebook video? Where do you specify alt tags, or "long descriptions"? The list is extensive. Final final note: Once your web developer is "done". Your staff who blogs and the content creators that fuel this work can ruin everything. Staff training is often overlooked.