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Comment by quasse | Hacker News Reader

I'm not an anti-straw crusader but I think this is a bit of a bad faith argument.

People with various disabilities or age related also frequently require lots of other assistive devices but that doesn't imply that they need to be used as the default for every single consumer. My grocery store doesn't hand every shopper a wheelchair instead of a shopping cart just because some percentage of the population requires them.

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Most groceries stores DO offer wheelchairs, either powered or manual, to their customers.

> doesn't hand every shopper a wheelchair

> DO offer wheelchairs

You see the difference, right? We can do that for straws.

But they are not the default, and that's OP and OOOP's point. There's no reason 99% of the population needs to be served their drinks with a straw. Straws should be available for the 1% who need them for accessibility reasons and some (probably very small) group who prefer to use them for whatever reason. But they should not be the default.

> My grocery store doesn't hand every shopper a wheelchair instead of a shopping cart just because some percentage of the population requires them.

Strange choice of example. Electric wheelchairs are available at most stores of a certain size. Wheelchair reserved parking is available at all almost all stores.

(in California)

I still don't think you're following what I'm saying.

When you go to the grocery store, what is the DEFAULT option available to you? Is there a corral of hundreds of wheelchairs with one waiting for every shopper?

Just because something should be available does not mean it should be the default.

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