In your mind, is it possible to be on the side of those with the disability and yet still against the ADA?
Put another way, given the two concrete examples mentioned (UCB and Stanford) did actual people with actual disabilities gain greater access to the content that was taken offline (in order to comply with the ADA)? Lots of laws have good intentions and bad effects. I think we should judge them by their effects, not their intentions.
That said, perhaps an improvement to the ADA would be budget to help producers of free content to become ADA compliant.
I am all for web accessibility, and I think companies and developers should consider it a priority, but I do not think a law like the ADA is a good fit for this issue. The parts of the ADA that are good are the prohibition on actively discriminating against people with disabilities and requiring reasonable changes in policies. Requiring buildings to be rebuilt and taking down websites are excessive infringements on freedom and would best be addressed by the free market.
Here are some links you might find interesting: https://www.the-american-interest.com/2013/06/11/the-disabli... https://attorneyatlawmagazine.com/ada-trolls-and-unintended-... https://www.city-journal.org/beyonce-lawsuit-ada https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/parking-lot-trolls-laws... https://adadefense.net/
Only if the marginal cost of developing them is less than the revenue attained by developing them, which is also limited by the amount of funds that disabled people have.
Disabled people existed before ADA, and the reason ADA was popular was because it didn’t make business sense to serve the disabled population. There’s no way construction costs of ADA accessible features of a building will ever be recouped by sales to disabled people needing it.
A free market solution would require the government to give sufficient cash to disabled people, enough to make businesses want to compete for them. But that is also wrought with possibilities for corruption.
Profit is just one form of incentive that we can align for increasing compliance with directives with a positive social benefit. All incentives are abusable if you design them incorrectly, so I see no reason to vilify profit over other kinds of incentives.
When you say you'd shrug what you are really saying is that you care about your HOA and don't give a crap about people with disabilities. If you did care you'd be proposing ways to close loopholes like the one Plaintiff was exploiting.
My issue with this system is the animosity it causes. Panzagl had one interaction with this method and it was enough for them to be ambivalent about the ADA.
A friend of mine does public outreach for an organization for the blind in Seattle, and 99% of ADA non-compliance that they see stems from ignorance and is solved by education.
The disabled aren't the only people who care. Take care of your sidewalk, it's your legal fucking responsibility.
Absent liability, the other alternatives are some sort of executive branch enforcer (which does things to the whim of the executive) or some kind of onerous licensing/certification scheme (e.g. doctors), and both are IMO worse outcomes.