Everyone is technology dependant these days. I try not to overthink it.

Working on it!

I can’t eliminate the technical dependency, but I’m working to deal with some of the related issues.

This subreddit isn’t for self promotion, and mods enforce that—as a mod, I’d have to punish myself—but as a casual comment I wanted you to know that at least one engineer is aware of this problem and working on it. Except I’m it working on it right now, of course, because I decided to look at Reddit. But I’m generally working on it!

Hmm, I strongly consider reading glasses an assistive tech. Those people without them would be unable to read whatever they were reading with glasses.

As far as disappearing assistive tech, I don't think things can disappear that easily. The recent vulnerabilities that were identified in some coding thing, don't even remember it 's name, Screen readers, magnifies, and even our white canes weren't affected at all. Do you think Google can suddenly decide to make a change in it's search page and make it inaccessible to millions of screen reader users? Imagine the backlash that would follow, the revenue loss it would suffer.

If they are at a point where accessibility of things couldn't be maintained, then I am sure it would be some apocalyptic event, or new assistive tech would replace the previous one.

As far as personal use is concerned, I really don't care. However the increasing amount of VoiceOver bugs on MacOS that persist for years without a fix is making me begin to question whether I should trust this technology for work, as I was considering finding a job as an iOS developer. Imagine that one day a MacOS or even Xcode release breaks something that I absolutely need at work; what am I supposed to do? The latest major version of Xcode, which requires the latest major version of MacOS, is required to develop for the App Store, so downgrading either to the previous major version is not an option, and downgrading MacOS to the previous minor version, with all the security implications that it has, is not an option either since Apple makes it unavailable for download.

It's true that we all depend on technology, but as a very small minority who depends on an extra layer of technology that most developers don't need, the blind are especially vulnerable.

A major disruption could throw everything off. As you mentioned, touch screen technology. It is then important to have adaptive technology advance with the new technology (screen readers and such). It is unfortunately not every app supports it, so making accessibility standards earlier would make it more common.

This is important to me, I like living alone so if and when I eventually tear my retinas it’s gonna suck extra hard because I’m not good at learning the screen readers and extra technology hell I can’t even get past a baby reading level with Braille because I forget the contractions before I’m done learning them but I have a dream of living alone in the mountains with a herd of tiny goats, how do I do that if I’m dependent on WIFI and assistive tech. While I’m grateful for the assistance that I have access to now I also dislike being so reliant on others and devices.

There may be no technology between a sighted person and a computer, but the computer itself is technology that sits between a person and news, or between a person and another person on social media, etc. If Facebook decides to suddenly censor or promote a certain topic, we wouldn't know and may just be adversely affected by the company's decisions (as the recent Facebook whistleblower has shown with things like privacy and mental health). If a messaging app suddenly just doesn't send messages out with certain words in it, we'd have a much rougher time talking about taboo topics. If the internet goes out while you're working from home, there's not much you can do.

There *is* a difference here, though, and that's that blind and other disabled people are a minority and therefore have a smaller voice with which to push back against problems that are specific to their needs. But in general, this is not actually a problem unique to blind and disabled people; *everyone* is becoming more and more reliant on technology, and therefore susceptible to technological failures (whether accidental or malicious and intentional).

I felt that really hard on my trip to the airport!! If I didn’t have my phone then I wouldn’t be able to tell where ANYTHING is. Including phone / bathroomm because aids are gate only right now. (Due to both low staff + time restrains because of low staff).

Everyone is dependant of technology now. Imagine an apocalypse where a solar flare burns every piece of technology. That is a real threat and A LOT of knowledge is going to disappear forever. Many people will die within hours because they need medical machines. We all would get uncommunicated, etc etc. The same can happen with an EMP weapon.... my point is, we all depend on gadgets at different rates.

The solution to this problem for me is to make sure I have braille paper at home. I also just bought a new brailler last year.

I went all the way through fifth grade with just braille. I could do it again if I had to.

I have had to tornados hit within a mile of my house, and we lost power for a day at the longest, but I know people who went four days without power.

I don’t know how to get around the ever increasing accessibility issues, but if I had to go without a computer for a extended period, I would be able to manage. I would not like it very much though.

I simply don't think that anything could be worsened. There are lots of accessibility experts and professionals nowadays.

This is something I've come across with so many games moving to using Unity as a base. It's annoying as hell, and games like BitLife having the coding to be mostly screen reader accessible then moving to unity for sequels, is frustrating.