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Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

It really seems to me that people like to be mad, get upset about marginal things that would only affect a small percentage of users (eg inability to side load apps on non-jailbroken iOS) and generally just focus on the negative. Maybe you could call it Outrage Addiction?

So it's refreshing to see something like this where a modern smartphone has such a positive (even life-changing) impact on someone's life.

This is also one of the things I find depressing about a significant chunk of Americans. Many will dismiss things like public transit as "people want to drive". Of course we then design cities and subsidize driving so it becomes a vicious circle and any public transit become unviable (to retrofit).

But what about the people who can't drive? Or even can't afford to drive?

Basically the American response is "F em".

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You might find this to be interesting: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/curb-cuts/

Curb cuts, in the USA, are a relatively recent addition and they benefit far more people than just wheelchair riders. Accessibility features can help everyone.

This is mostly a good thing. I say "mostly" because it encourages scooter riders to use the sidewalk and pretty much anywhere I've been scooter-share riders are a public menace.

One issue with these in NYC at least is the drainage just isn't designed for them. So anytime you get significant rain or snow melt you get pools of water that don't drain because the actual drains are elsewhere.

If only the US could adopt Dutch junction design [1].

And don't get me started on the cyclist and pedestrian safety nightmare that is allowing people to turn right at red lights.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HDN9fUlqU8

Funny how sidewalks are usually mentioned in terms of mobile people. Every economically disadvantaged wheelchair-bound person I have ever seen has not used the sidewalk. They use the road. It's much less likely to have huge broken up chunks and obstructions, and it's less problematic to have to haul yourself up the incline or potentially crash down the decline.

I wish we could somehow force everyone to live as somebody else for a week.

"I wish we could somehow force everyone to live as somebody else for a week."

I often wished this simple request whenever I was lumbered with a non-technical manager who would promise things to their equally-out-of-touch manager or a customer, eg. "I've told them it will be done in 2 weeks. How long will it take?"

It'd reduce the pain of everyone to live with more empathy.

> It's much less likely to have huge broken up chunks and obstructions, and it's less problematic to have to haul yourself up the incline or potentially crash down the decline.

It's also much more dangerous. Making the sidewalks useable for wheelchair users is much better for everyone than forcing them to go on the road.

It's also possibly not possible? I used to have a neighbor who used the road. I don't know that they really had any other choice. There were plenty of people on the block who also knew they had a neighbor who used a wheelchair, but that didn't prevent them from blocking the sidewalk with their cars, or setting up their lawn sprinklers to ensure that the sidewalk was really well watered, or allowing their bushes to grow across the sidewalk, or leaving their sidewalks unshoveled for days on end.

Government can do a lot of things, but I don't think it can force people to be conscientious.

Right. But that’s a problem that can be solved by law and enforcement. It’s not a law of nature. Just fine people who leave their cars where they don’t belong and otherwise obstruct public ways. That’s what I meant by “making them useable for wheelchairs”.

It also has the benefit of making them more useable for other people.

Those fines would need to be ruinous to justify the cost of collecting them, and you would still have people needing to block walkways for e.g. construction work.

Or for whom driving is excessively inconvenient. I've always been a public transit user, but my feelings about it changed when I started having kids. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford a car, but parking in the city is expensive, especially in and around many places I might be taking my kids, and taxis and rideshare are simply not an option for us. (Officially our city has an exception carved out of the child car seat law for medallioned taxis, but there's no way I'm putting my toddler in the back of a car that's being driven by an aggressive taxi driver without a car seat.) Public transit, on the other hand, is perfect. So, even though we are physically able to drive and can afford to drive, it's still something of a lifeline.

Do you live in the US?

Yup

I think your comment is solely calling out Americans' singular focus on cars as transit but I wanted to make a tangentially related point that Americans care deeply about accessibility. ADA has cemented accessibility into the core of public spaces. Driving is much easier to navigate in many ways than public transit for those with many mobility disabilities. And many American companies (many mentioned in this thread) strive to provide quality experiences to users with disabilities.

I remember being shocked the first time I went to Europe that if you were in a wheel chair you couldn't access 90% of building. Even new ones. Also good luck navigating their subways and train stations.

> the first time I went to Europe that if you were in a wheel chair you couldn't access 90% of building. Even new ones. Also good luck navigating their subways and train stations.

All I can say is `wat?`

But probably depends on which part of Europe, too. Most of the Northern Europe I've seen, you can access pretty much everything and every train and subway station is equipped with a wheelchair-accessible elevator.

Some parts of Europe may have old infrastructure that can't be easily retrofitted. London's subway has stations that are not wheelchair accessible, and accessibility is always marked on the map: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/standard-tube-map.pdf

The really weird thing is that a lot of folks simply don't have the option for public transport. Rural? Good luck, even during the day because there is no city-to-city transportation. Medium sized town? Maybe you have taxis, but honestly, they can't really be counted on to get you to where you need to by.

I'm serious on the last one: I lived one area that didn't allow you to order a cab beforehand, and waiting times could be 15 minutes to 2 hours. Good luck getting to and from work, even more luck if you need to pick up children from child care before they close.

Buses can be a real mixed bad: One city I lived in didn't have busses available for folks working second shift (3-11) because they stopped running, nor did busses run on Sunday. One bar had a large van/paddywagon style vehicle to take drunk patrons home.

Choice would be nice.

Even living in major cities, public transit in many US cities is just bad.

I suffer from epilepsy. I live in the Bay area. Unless I get an Uber/Lyft, it's ridiculously hard to get around using public transit.

> that would only affect a small percentage of users (eg inability to side load apps on non-jailbroken iOS)

The iOS app censorship issue is only a fringe issue because we're in peacetime. Censorship that can be deployed society-wide (such as the CCP requiring Apple to censor VPN apps, or the banning of the protest coordination apps in HK) in a click is an existential threat to a free society.

Apple's already maintained the e2e encryption backdoor in iMessage for the FBI[1] just upon request (not even legal compulsion); imagine if on "national security" grounds (or some other emergency circumstance as dictated by the US) they disabled Signal and every other e2e messenger, routing all iPhone-mediated communications into surveillance channels.

The potential for abuse is too large.

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

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