It's an intractable problem; most people believe software should be accessible to people with different needs, and most people also believe that other people shouldn't be able to force you to do work for free.

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.