Which one you decide on seems like a value judgement to me. Is it fair that instead of shipping that feature you really want this month, you have to do accessibility features? I don't think the answer is black and white.
FWIW, accessibility seems hard. I am not a good web dev, and the conversations that spin out from these accessibility conversations frequently go right over my head. I can build a pretty basic React site, but I have no idea how to add accessibility components to that, or how I would test whether my site is accessible or not.
Part of this problem is probably lack of exposure. I know what a screenreader is, but I don't know how they work. I don't know what makes it easy to traverse a page with a screenreader and what makes it hard. It would probably help a lot if we forced devs to have experience with accessibility tools so they know they work.
Exactly.
Changing <div> to <button>, passing your website through an "accessibility validator" or adding an accessibility toolbar don't guarantee your website is actually usable on a screen reader (as an example).
Getting accessibility right takes non-trivial effort.
Yes I would argue that morally projects should do their best to support it - but even at well established companies it takes significant resources to maintain accessibility. Yes in this case it may be as simple as using native Buttons, as the above comment said, 'that's as far as I got'. Just pretending that accessibility isn't a significant time an resources doesn't make it any less so. If this wasn't true then there wouldn't be legislation to essentially address this market-failure.