[jscholes]

> new screen readers and new web APIs come out and and more.

New web APIs, for sure. But the screen reader market is not fast moving, in terms of new software being adopted. The line-up of the most used three screen readers (NVDA, JAWS and VoiceOver) has not changed in over a decade, despite the individual software applications themselves undergoing changes, and of course the market share of each one increasing and decreasing over time.

> Do we seriously expect every small non-technical business eking out a living with a small store to be experts on every facet of accessibility?

No, but I also don't expect such a business to be up on the latest in security, PCI compliance, GDPR conformance and more. For that reason, they are probably either:

1. engaging a web design/development agency; and/or 2. using a pre-defined platform, like Shopify.

In the former case, I do expect anyone making money from website building to at least give accessibility some thought. For the latter, Shopify is one of the businesses you describe, as a "large tech company who can write a blank check for a large team of full-time developers who can work full time on nothing but accessibility". As such, they absolutely should be setting up small business owners for success, by making their out-of-the-box themes, widgets, flows, etc. reasonably accessible to the widest possible audience.

[Aerroon]

Ah, so that is why small businesses so commonly do not have a website and use Facebook instead.

[bobthepanda]

Most small businesses want some solution that Just Works^TM. The less time and money spent, the better.

Most small businesses will also not jerry-rig their own payment processors.

[logicalmonster]

Can we acknowledge that there’s more than 1 important competing “socially good” value that’s in conflict with your prescription?

Your prescription is a large step towards the death of what portion of the free and open web still exists. Just saying “build your business website on some default storefront or walled-garden by Facebook, Amazon, Shopify, or some other mega corporation’s platform and don’t change 1 line of code or risk legal obliteration” is close to a death sentence for an independent web.

Is it not valid to point out that doing our best to maintain an independent web is also an important value as well for the world, for disabled people, and future generations?

[mwcampbell]

Inaccessibility can prevent a person from getting a job, or cause a person to lose their job if the requirements for that job change (I've seen it happen). What is the equivalent personal cost of further centralizing the web?

[etchalon]

It is not valid to say that the value of an open web trumps the value of people being able to use the open web.