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Are you speaking out of professional experience? Do you know of cases where not implementing accessibility really did become a big financial hazard? Imagine th

Are you speaking out of professional experience? Do you know of cases where not implementing accessibility really did become a big financial hazard? Imagine the headline "company goes bust due to regulatory violations after hiring blind person". That would basically be sending the message "never hire a blind person", because no company can ever be sure to be in compliance.

BossingAround 6y ago
> Are you speaking out of professional experience? Do you know of cases where not implementing accessibility really did become a big financial hazard? Not sure what are you saying here. Are you saying that while it might become a law, companies that can't find the money to comply don't need to comply in such cases..? Or that it hasn't happened yet, so it's not bound to happen?
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > Not sure what are you saying here. I'm asking. Often times, people make claims based on what they think should be happening. That doesn't mean it is happening.
shripadk 6y ago
You don't need to hire a blind person to be compliant with regulations. What if you are building consumer facing products? Can you pick who your consumer will be? What stops a blind person from using your product? And what if the user is suffering from another physical disability which doesn't let the user operate a keyboard/mouse? What if the employee were a medically fit person but met with an unfortunate accident and lost his/her eyesight/limb and have to now continue job after recovery? How can s/he continue their job? Will you fire the person? You never hired a physically challenged person but s/he can always become physically challenged due to some accident later. > Do you know of cases where not implementing accessibility really did become a big financial hazard? "Jason Camacho, a blind resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is suing 50 colleges over the accessibility of their websites. The 50 lawsuits, filed in November, say the colleges are in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, as their websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. Camacho uses a screen reader and said he experienced barriers when trying to access the colleges' websites." Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/fifty-colleges-sued-barrage-ada-lawsuits-over-web-accessibility https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/fifty-college...
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > What if... What if tomorrow some change of parameters makes my business impossible? I'll go out of business. That's always an option. Dealing with every possible risk ahead of time generally isn't an option. > "Jason Camacho, a blind resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is suing 50 colleges over the accessibility of their websites. This is referring to public websites, which arguably are covered by the ADA. I'm looking more of a story like "We wrote all our software without regards to accessibility. Then we got sued. It bankrupted us." If this was a real problem for software in general, why is there no cottage industry of shady lawyers using people with disabilities to sue software vendors in particular? There's obviously lots of software that is not accessible, or not accessible enough.
  - shripadk 6y ago
    > What if tomorrow some change of parameters makes my business impossible? I'll go out of business. That's always an option. Yes and no one can sue you for going out of business. But you can be sued for violating a law while your business is in operation. > Dealing with every possible risk ahead of time generally isn't an option. No you need not if you use standard software development tools that do it for you. You would need to worry about it if you plan to implement everything on your own. > If this was a real problem for software in general, why is there no cottage industry of shady lawyers using people with disabilities to sue software vendors in particular? There's obviously lots of software that is not accessible, or not accessible enough. When there is a clear law that states that you have to make your software accessible you have no choice but to implement accessibility. For personal use you need not. For open source projects, the implementation rests on the shoulders of those using the project for end-user facing software. You can get away with it for a while, just like you can get away with using pirated software. But then law will catch up anyways. Just because there is no precedent set doesn't mean that it is legally allowed. Would you want to be the first test case? A scapegoat? I bet not! As far as why there are no cottage industry of shady lawyers: Maybe those shady lawyers have bigger fish to catch. Maybe there isn't much awareness about it in the legal circles. Could be variety of reasons why.
    - 6y ago
bananaface 6y ago
Harvard & MIT were sued for putting up free lectures, because they didn't have captions[1]. Harvard eventually settled[2], not sure about MIT. I believe MIT's response was actually to pull a lot of the lectures, but I don't know if that stuck. In that case the main complaint seemed to be that they had more of an obligation because they were receiving federal funding. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/education/harvard-and-mit-sued-over-failing-to-caption-online-courses.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/education/harvard-and-mit... 2: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/2/Harvard-settles-caption-lawsuit/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/2/Harvard-settles...
- ausjke 6y ago
  this is how things work these days, for the sake of equality, minority overrule majority everywhere, i.e. if something makes a small percentage of people unhappy, then it is too unfair, the solution to play it safe, is that let's get rid it of for all.
  - adamsea 6y ago
    Are you complaining that the United States has laws to make sure organizations don’t simply choose to ignore the needs of blind people, deaf people, and other people with disabilities?
    - bananaface 6y ago
      Not the person you replied to, but I do think it's ridiculous that they were able to sue them over free content. All it did was put up barriers against dissemination. I know at least one institution removed lectures because of it. Those courses are just... Gone now. Poof.
bitwize 6y ago
See, in the USA we have this thing called the Americans with Disabilities Act, under which providing accessibility options for people with disabilities to access your goods and services is required in order to do business.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  The ADA refers to "public accommodations", which in some cases can include websites. It does not include every single piece of commercial software.

BossingAround 6y ago

> Are you speaking out of professional experience? Do you know of cases where not implementing accessibility really did become a big financial hazard? Not sure what are you saying here. Are you saying that while it might become a law, companies that can't find the money to comply don't need to comply in such cases..? Or that it hasn't happened yet, so it's not bound to happen?

gridlockd 6y ago
> Not sure what are you saying here. I'm asking. Often times, people make claims based on what they think should be happening. That doesn't mean it is happening.

shripadk 6y ago

You don't need to hire a blind person to be compliant with regulations. What if you are building consumer facing products? Can you pick who your consumer will be? What stops a blind person from using your product? And what if the user is suffering from another physical disability which doesn't let the user operate a keyboard/mouse? What if the employee were a medically fit person but met with an unfortunate accident and lost his/her eyesight/limb and have to now continue job after recovery? How can s/he continue their job? Will you fire the person? You never hired a physically challenged person but s/he can always become physically challenged due to some accident later. > Do you know of cases where not implementing accessibility really did become a big financial hazard? "Jason Camacho, a blind resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is suing 50 colleges over the accessibility of their websites. The 50 lawsuits, filed in November, say the colleges are in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, as their websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. Camacho uses a screen reader and said he experienced barriers when trying to access the colleges' websites." Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/fifty-colleges-sued-barrage-ada-lawsuits-over-web-accessibility https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12/10/fifty-college...

gridlockd 6y ago
> What if... What if tomorrow some change of parameters makes my business impossible? I'll go out of business. That's always an option. Dealing with every possible risk ahead of time generally isn't an option. > "Jason Camacho, a blind resident of Brooklyn, N.Y., is suing 50 colleges over the accessibility of their websites. This is referring to public websites, which arguably are covered by the ADA. I'm looking more of a story like "We wrote all our software without regards to accessibility. Then we got sued. It bankrupted us." If this was a real problem for software in general, why is there no cottage industry of shady lawyers using people with disabilities to sue software vendors in particular? There's obviously lots of software that is not accessible, or not accessible enough.
- shripadk 6y ago
  > What if tomorrow some change of parameters makes my business impossible? I'll go out of business. That's always an option. Yes and no one can sue you for going out of business. But you can be sued for violating a law while your business is in operation. > Dealing with every possible risk ahead of time generally isn't an option. No you need not if you use standard software development tools that do it for you. You would need to worry about it if you plan to implement everything on your own. > If this was a real problem for software in general, why is there no cottage industry of shady lawyers using people with disabilities to sue software vendors in particular? There's obviously lots of software that is not accessible, or not accessible enough. When there is a clear law that states that you have to make your software accessible you have no choice but to implement accessibility. For personal use you need not. For open source projects, the implementation rests on the shoulders of those using the project for end-user facing software. You can get away with it for a while, just like you can get away with using pirated software. But then law will catch up anyways. Just because there is no precedent set doesn't mean that it is legally allowed. Would you want to be the first test case? A scapegoat? I bet not! As far as why there are no cottage industry of shady lawyers: Maybe those shady lawyers have bigger fish to catch. Maybe there isn't much awareness about it in the legal circles. Could be variety of reasons why.
  - 6y ago

bananaface 6y ago

Harvard & MIT were sued for putting up free lectures, because they didn't have captions[1]. Harvard eventually settled[2], not sure about MIT. I believe MIT's response was actually to pull a lot of the lectures, but I don't know if that stuck. In that case the main complaint seemed to be that they had more of an obligation because they were receiving federal funding. 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/education/harvard-and-mit-sued-over-failing-to-caption-online-courses.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/education/harvard-and-mit... 2: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/2/Harvard-settles-caption-lawsuit/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/2/Harvard-settles...

ausjke 6y ago
this is how things work these days, for the sake of equality, minority overrule majority everywhere, i.e. if something makes a small percentage of people unhappy, then it is too unfair, the solution to play it safe, is that let's get rid it of for all.
- adamsea 6y ago
  Are you complaining that the United States has laws to make sure organizations don’t simply choose to ignore the needs of blind people, deaf people, and other people with disabilities?
  - bananaface 6y ago
    Not the person you replied to, but I do think it's ridiculous that they were able to sue them over free content. All it did was put up barriers against dissemination. I know at least one institution removed lectures because of it. Those courses are just... Gone now. Poof.

bitwize 6y ago

See, in the USA we have this thing called the Americans with Disabilities Act, under which providing accessibility options for people with disabilities to access your goods and services is required in order to do business.

gridlockd 6y ago
The ADA refers to "public accommodations", which in some cases can include websites. It does not include every single piece of commercial software.