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Comment by maxloh | Hacker News Reader

Maybe required by EU law?

Not a friend of accessibility though. It requires so much work to satisfy a small base of users.

A small base of users at any given time. Almost everyone needs "accessibility" eventually. You will, too, if you're lucky enough to live that long.

Now you understand why laws like this need to be passed. Because otherwise assholes like you wouldn't do it.

Until you're disabled.

In the long run, everybody is disabled. My eyesight is way worse than it used to be, as an example, and it's beginning to affect my ability to computer. Absent some miracle treatment (which is bound to cost an arm and a leg and NOT be covered by insurance anyway), it's not going to get any better.

You’re being downvoted but this is true - most accessibility work seems to be generated by the accessibility industry, and is focused on short term fixes (modifying every website) rather than long-term solutions (fixing web browsers for disabled people).

How do you propose making all websites accessible at the Web browser level? That seems likely to be an intractable problem.

Browser modifications to detect and modify things like font size, selection and contrast, designs transformed into modified versions suitable for different disabilities using ML. Things that actually scale versus asking every website to modify their code for every disability, which will never happen.

Are web browsers not accessible by default? If you make everything out of the core primitives they provide: lists, paragraphs, buttons, forms, etc, a screen reader will have no problem, and reader mode can let the user tweak it. It's only when people reconstruct primitives that assistive technology breaks. I don't see how you can fix that at the browser level except by taking away all the toys and breaking 99% of the web.

> reader mode can let the user tweak it

Reader mode will help with some disabilities but not others.

> It's only when people reconstruct primitives that assistive technology breaks.

I like using the platform too, but users don't use primitives - they interact with higher level elements like carousels, profile pictures, comment boxes, and most new UI elements do not have accessibility industry ARIA role.

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