These legal rackets know if they hit you for something you can afford to pay and keep your business running, that you aren't likely to throw it all away for empty vengeance. Cameras are everywhere now.
They clearly aren't, and there are around a hundred arson committed each day in average in the US so it doesn't look like the sheer number of surveillance camera is enough of a deterrent for the typical criminal.
Doing which, making services unavailable to disabled people or suing those that do?
I mean if my health insurer, for example, couldn't accommodate a disability of mine, especially something as common as low vision or hearing, I'd certainly feel like getting revenge but doesn't everyone feel that way about every health insurer every year or two?
If you meant the other way around, like if someone sued me because I was the one essentially locking people with a disability out from using my service I'd probably just take a really logical approach to handling it (for instance, making the accommodation they request). From what I've read the most common outcome in these cases is that the defendant is ordered to make the accommodation.
Getting sued or even just threatened with a lawsuit is pretty scary though, if anyone here is facing threat of lawsuit I'd suggest you consult with several attorneys right away but also find a YouTube attorney to set your expectations of the process. It's super easy to get fleeced by your own attorney unless you direct them pretty intentionally.
You think these people are champions of the disabled?
If a disabled person wanted to see the video, and could not, and asked them for help, that would be one thing. This ain't that. They're fucking vultures, they are in this to make money off of as many people as possible, regardless of the harm they cause. This is no more sane than the Texas law that allows people to be amateur bounty hunters and dogpile on anyone who might have played any kind of role in any woman's abortion.
From Googling, it appears that suits without actual damages are getting thrown out[0], so I'd guess the attorneys running that show are doing something unlawful but not illegal by filing these suits, or maybe something not even unlawful by simply making legal demands without filing.
Probably one of the biggest causes for all of this pain is that so many "white collar" violations of public trust are either a) not actually illegal or b) not handled by any law enforcement.
The Prenda Law debacle comes to mind though -- these guys spent years terrorizing people with copyright law before anything really came of it but, incredibly, they actually ended up convicted on fairly serious charges. It's super wild to read about, I wonder if they had dialed it back a tiny bit they would have stayed under the radar completely.
[0] This doesn't help the defendants in question with their own attorney's fees but does send a message about viability of these garbage suits to the plaintiffs and every other firm looking into it.
I'm speaking from experience here, I've done quite a few accessibility-related support requests, and getting a human to answer is very often a struggle.
If McDonalds coffee lady was buying coffees everywhere, checking them with a thermometer, suing because she could have burnt herself, and then used the proceeds to hire more people to do the same in a profit sharing scheme then her case would be comparable to the current ADA abusers in California.
Instead, the McDonald's in question had been repeatedly warned by health inspectors, was in violation of corporate policy, and the woman was an actual customer that was hospitalized as a result of the business violating the law.
2. Label anyone who tries to enforce it an “ADA abuser” and claim they are misusing the system to make money.
3. Disability protections are successfully ignored, corporations make more profit.
Usually there’s a “???” in the middle, but this one is pretty straightforward.
Is the defendant following the law and being wrongfully sued?
Or are they breaking the law but should only be held accountable if a disabled person has the energy, time, and money to go through the court system?
It’s sounding like “it’s annoying to serve disabled people, businesses should be able to get away with not doing that.” In my mind we are literally dealing with people who are abusing (ignoring) ADA to make a profit, but you are calling the OTHER side profit-seeking abusers.
I object to abuse of the ADA. Businesses / organizations should be given an opportunity to remediate their web sites before an automated script files an erroneous lawsuit.
> The most common penalty at the federal level is a demand that the website be updated swiftly to better cater to people with disabilities.
[0] https://ddiy.co/can-you-be-sued-if-your-website-is-not-ada-c...
On the news we may read about Arson (or other "angry actions" by individuals) but this is highly negative selection bias - the actual incidence rate is near zero.
Because we have a lot of data like this (negative news that you are exposed to) we tend to over-estimate the incidence rate of arson (e.g. 1% instead of 0.001%)
So, when you ask the question "Why isn't $action provoking more $arson here", the answer is simple: statistically speaking, each individual is extremely unlikely to do arson (or similar), so even though they've been perturbed, the incidence doesn't really go up.
Another way to say it: Everyone knows the ROI on arson is negative, no matter how upset you are, crime is never worth it as a response, because you have zero upside. So almost everyone (overwhelming majority) don't do this (but we might think they would, again because we're exposed to negative bias news data)