Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

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What is the cure for having amputated legs while being poor?

The cure for a lack of legs is typically prosthetics with extensive therapy. Incredibly expensive and labor intensive.

The cure for amputated legs while being poor is a wheelchair; not as easily managed without additional space when parked, and if there are no ramps up to your building, your business is effectively inaccessible.

But ramps cost extra money. So do wheelchair accessible curbs. You need more space in the isles, specialized bathroom stalls, special door handles, support for someone closer to the floor at your counters... Lots of things we take for granted today, but which didn't exist for many years before the ADA.

Yeah, and sometimes businesses have been able to collect credits from the government for compliance with such-and-such. When they're forced to bleed money though (in this instance all that extra space adds up by itself, plus the opportunity costs -- imagine the pushback if airplane seats had to be way bigger and roomier!), and not all bled money can be passed on to the consumers, and even if it's done in the name of some good cause, the fact that it's still forced bleeding is what I don't really like, and would appreciate less of.

I'm kind of big on cyborg technology and other futurist ideas (like brain emulations). Varying degrees are expensive and not even available right now, but a large part of that is a serious lack of funding which in turn cuts business opportunities. (I would bet if society focused more efforts and money on general human augmentation instead of just helping the disabled, the disabled would come along for the ride since the non-disabled market is so much greater. As I touched on in another comment, the second-order effects often provide more value for these niche markets than targeting the niche markets directly.) While we transition to better tech that even the poor can afford we can still consider forced money bleeding, but I'd like to consider demand side solutions too.

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