At a personal level, I’m fine with individual pieces of software being accessible or not. It’s the same with individual pieces of art, buildings and so on. I’m

At a personal level, I’m fine with individual pieces of software being accessible or not. It’s the same with individual pieces of art, buildings and so on. I’m into music enough that I DJ and play in bands; my partner is deaf and prefers subtitled films; no big deal. But when you pull your focus a bit further back to look at society, Infrastructure, systems and practices, it’s easy to see that disabled people are both more vulnerable and also less well supported (and often actively discriminated against). The laws we have give disabled people some leverage to redress that imbalance. Unfortunately, the perspective that “accessibility is an expensive addition” is so pervasive (or not even considered), that disabled people need those laws. A problem with laws is they reinforce binary thinking. As written they tend towards flexibility, but at the point of enforcement, there’s usually a hard line between punishment and not, which amplifies that binary impression. A less binary outlook would see people and companies embracing the opportunities for collaboration and creativity. For example, a big games publisher could actively seek out and promote developers who specialise in accessible games, or games that play with creative devices beyond the vision-first norm. A few examples exist but they’re rare, independent and it’s not a category you can search for. The same goes for art, galleries, cinema. London, where I live, had an improving state of live subtitled theatre, but it’s still only one performance in 50 or 100, for the big shows. It’s probably only even this good because of the law.