> 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-college...
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.
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.
The belief that you just need to use "standard toolkits" and accessibility "just works" is wrong.
> When there is a clear law that states that you have to make your software accessible you have no choice but to implement accessibility.
There is no law that mandates implementing accessibility for all commercial software.
> 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.
...or maybe the law doesn't actually say what you think it says.
Toolkits provide you the tools to do accessibility right. Toolkits don't do your accessibility for you. That is the biggest difference. You just misunderstood what I said.
> There is no law that mandates implementing accessibility for all commercial software.
Wrong! It applies to all software. Period.
"The Department of Justice (DOJ) published the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design in September 2010. These standards state that all electronic and information technology must be accessible to people with disabilities.
The ADA differs from Section 508 regulations, which are an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and apply to all information technology, including computer hardware, software and documentation."
In fact, the DOJ clarifies it further that accessibility is paramount and that even though the regulatory process isn't complete on paper doesn't mean that the software should remain inaccessible in the meantime.
'"The Department is currently developing regulations specifically addressing the accessibility of goods and services offered via the web by entities covered by the ADA. The fact that the regulatory process is not yet complete in no way indicates that web services are not already covered by title III."'
Source: https://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/services/ada-compli...
> ...or maybe the law doesn't actually say what you think it says.
It does. Read it.
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...
2: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/12/2/Harvard-settles...
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?
I'm asking.
Often times, people make claims based on what they think should be happening. That doesn't mean it is happening.
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.