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I think this is kind of an odd proposition to have though, because market sizes aren't always reasonably correct to judge. For example, beauty products previous

I think this is kind of an odd proposition to have though, because market sizes aren't always reasonably correct to judge. For example, beauty products previously thought that black women are a small market. In reality, black skintones have unique qualities in shade that aren't appropriately captured. The day a line of PoC oriented foundations were widely available they were so heavily demanded that stores nationwide were constantly sold out for months. We've already learned this via curb cutouts. An argument like yours was proposed (eg. we don't need cutouts in curbs for wheelchairs, so few people have wheelchairs) but it turns out that everyone benefits from the thing installed (child strollers, luggage pulling, movers, anything on wheels suddenly benefited). The position here is that this is similar. Having something that is readable to the blind could suddenly benefit a wide, diverse range of people- colorblind folk, people who just underwent eye surgery, cataract sufferers, even photosensitive or light-induced migraine sufferers suddenly benefit! You could even argue that it would help reduce blue light exposure at night if you could browse without turning on your screen and suddenly theres an opportunity for literally everyone using a screen to benefit from ADA compliant websites for the blind.

esyir 7y ago
Sure, but then that's an opportunity waiting to be taken, especially in your beauty product case. Someone found that niche, took it and now that problem is solved, don't need regulation for that. For the latter, how sure are you that the benefit outweighs the cost here. Given the current state of the law as I understand it, if websites would be classified as "public accomodations", they'd all have to provide accessibility options regardless of size. Moreover, I've taken a look at the WCAG guidelines to educate myself on what providing accessibility would be like. It's not exactly small, and while experienced, large organizations might be able to comply, smaller restaurants might have issues there, especially if they're skimping on the webdev side of things. If I wanted to abuse this, I could crawl restaurant listings, hit them with a scary templated legal document threatening a lawsuit for compliance to some law they've probably never heard of. From an outsider viewpoint, I don't really trust American regulation that much to improve the situation, especially looking at the bay area housing situation and the state of your public transport. The former is a precise case of regulation causing issues, and attempts to remove that highlight how hard it is to remove poor regulation.
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  " Someone found that niche, took it and now that problem is solved, don't need regulation for that." Except for ADA related things, we really did need regulation to install cutouts in curbs, and now it's a major wonderful thing everyone is advantaged by.

esyir 7y ago

Sure, but then that's an opportunity waiting to be taken, especially in your beauty product case. Someone found that niche, took it and now that problem is solved, don't need regulation for that. For the latter, how sure are you that the benefit outweighs the cost here. Given the current state of the law as I understand it, if websites would be classified as "public accomodations", they'd all have to provide accessibility options regardless of size. Moreover, I've taken a look at the WCAG guidelines to educate myself on what providing accessibility would be like. It's not exactly small, and while experienced, large organizations might be able to comply, smaller restaurants might have issues there, especially if they're skimping on the webdev side of things. If I wanted to abuse this, I could crawl restaurant listings, hit them with a scary templated legal document threatening a lawsuit for compliance to some law they've probably never heard of. From an outsider viewpoint, I don't really trust American regulation that much to improve the situation, especially looking at the bay area housing situation and the state of your public transport. The former is a precise case of regulation causing issues, and attempts to remove that highlight how hard it is to remove poor regulation.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
" Someone found that niche, took it and now that problem is solved, don't need regulation for that." Except for ADA related things, we really did need regulation to install cutouts in curbs, and now it's a major wonderful thing everyone is advantaged by.