I'm not disagreeing with you, BTW... just saying that for the decision to be good business sense you need to look at the full potential impact on the business.
It just kind of feels like a joke, when almost any webapp in existence is not compliant and there is no enforcement.
It also goes against the hacker ethos that we should be free to build and share without credentialing or licensing.
Imagine if you couldn't Show HN without thinking about accessibility and actually taking on serious legal risk.
No, because real people with problems (not lawsuit trolls) don't want your money, they want you to fix your product. Most will reach out before bringing a suit. If a suit is brought, they almost always settle if the company A) fixes the problem and commits to keeping the product accessible and B) pays the costs of the suit.
It's cheaper to fix the problems than to fight the suit, especially for a new business that doesn't have a lot of technical debt or a large corpus of inaccessible content.
> Imagine if you couldn't Show HN without thinking about accessibility and actually taking on serious legal risk.
U.S. accessibility requirements for private entities (vs. government ones) apply to "places of public accommodation." Lawsuit results have been mixed about whether an online operation, especially if it has no corresponding physical operation, count as a "place" (I think they do). Personal sites, projects will not require meeting accessibility requirements any more than your house will be legally required to have a ramp for wheelchair users.
If you're going to worry about legal risks for Show HN projects, worry more about creating privacy and security problems for users.
It seems like it would be a good way for a company to suppress competitors to a field, they could trigger these kinds of laws in up-and-coming companies.
And yes, you certainly could audit your competitors products and force them down this path. I'm not sure that is a winning move, though, as all you are doing is forcing them to build a stronger product.