This is all my personal opinion based on watching business and industry over many years, it may or not be correct - take it for what it is worth. Accessibility for the disabled is a result of political pressure on large companies since it is an additional time / money cost. Less political pressure, less accessibility over time. Microsoft has been, in the past, very accessible from the design of their OS to products they Produced due to both past political pressures and Mr. Gates personal internal company humanistic pressures. Google and other major vendors have done just enough to keep them out of government and public opinion cross-hairs. Apple followed the Microsoft plan but is seeing its phones selling weaker along with tablets and other hardware and will likely follow Google and Microsoft away from built-in accessibility hooks on their products, I.B.M. also comes to mind, doing just enough to stay out of government and media limelights. You old-timers may remember I have noted all this in the past when Silverlight came out and Microsoft said they would make it accessible some day, when they pushed out their inaccessible cell phones and now I mention this again as Microsoft again pushes out an inaccessible product - the Edge Browser without any serious government ramifications. Postponing or eliminating accessibility allows these companies to push out new product faster and at a lower cost, what do they gain for the outsized costs of making product accessible to small groups where the cost / benefit analysis says that group is negative from a profit standpoint? Accessibility like freedom needs constant vigilance and action when necessary me thinks. Rick USA
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