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I think you have a valid point. However, I'd like to offer a factual correction on this part: > How about disabled people in middle-income countries who can't

I think you have a valid point. However, I'd like to offer a factual correction on this part: > How about disabled people in middle-income countries who can't afford to upgrade their screen reader? As far as I know, this was only ever an issue on Windows, and it's not anymore. IMO, the best third-party screen reader for Windows is NVDA [1], and it's free and open-source. Even a user stuck on Windows XP or Vista can get a version of NVDA from 2017 that works well with Chromium (assuming one can get a Chromium-based browser that runs on those old versions of Windows). On all other platforms, the screen reader is built into the platform itself, and updated along with it. Windows itself has had Narrator built in for a long time now, and Narrator in Windows 10 is getting good (disclosure: I was on the Narrator team at Microsoft for 3 years), but there are still valid reasons to use a third-party screen reader on Windows. [1]: https://www.nvaccess.org/ https://www.nvaccess.org/

kijin 5y ago
You are right, but we must remember that poor people in poor regions are disproportionately more likely to be stuck on very old hardware. According to StatCounter, 5.7% of PC users in Africa are still on XP or Vista, compared to only 0.6% in North America. That's almost 10 times as much. Rallying against older browsers was once supposed to be a good fight against evil monopolists. Now it's about kicking away the ladder from people who are already the poorest and most powerless in the world, making them even less able to take advantage of the latest information and communication tools. And we're not even realizing what we're doing because we're so used to the first world fast upgrade cycle.