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Users You Don’t Want

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Re: Users You Don’t Want

#51

Post by mintplant »

Pinatubo wrote: post #14

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. Meanwhile on Tumblr: "Startup says they don't want developmentally disabled people as customers.…

> Startup says they don't want developmentally disabled people as customers

That's not exactly incorrect, is it? The title of the article is "Users You Don't Want" and the author gives a developmentally disabled person as an example.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#52

Post by DanBC »

gautamdivgi wrote: post #33
GuiA wrote: post #20

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in…

This is a good point. Same with Uber. Most Cab companies are required to provide access to wheelchair bound and disabled members of society at no extra charge. Not sure if Uber has the same requirement - and if and when it starts moving cab's out of business it will definitely prove to be a problem.

There's a few people with assistance dogs who get denied service by Uber.

Sometimes that's because the driver has an allergy, but often it's just because.

EDIT: here's one lawsuit from Arlington: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/bli...

Here's another from London: http://www.itv.com/news/london/2016-04-21/blind-woman-who-wa...

Note that London one has won repeated court cases for the exact same thing. Uber drivers keep refusing to take her and her dog; she takes them to court; she wins; she tries to get an Uber and the driver refuses to take the dog.

Here's a case that Uber settled for a couple of hundred thousand dollars: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/what-uber-really-thinks-abo...

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#53

Post by dsacco »

jcoffland wrote: post #45
GuiA wrote: post #20

> Now, what happens if someone with an infant or developmentally challenged teenager signs up? Their needs present an entirely new set of problems, problems that could be solved by a startup but not necessarily by ours. Remember you don’t have to pivot your business because a customer needs something that you don’t offer. If you open a restaurant, you bet that there are certain building codes you'll have to follow in…

The quoted statement above is blatant discrimination and incriminates the company who wrote it. I'm surprised the company's lawyers allowed it. Much of the legal system in the US says that you cannot ignore the needs of minority groups just because it's not profitable.

How is the statement discriminatory?

If a company decided to start a sharing economy-based babysitting service, but doesn't have the requisite resources (or training/certification among workers) to look after special needs children, it's okay for them to not cater to those individuals.

It's not as though they have the ability and are denying service - they are choosing not to develop a product or service with accessibility features. I can entertain a normative argument that it's ethically wrong to allow companies to operate in this way, but this is not legally considered discrimination.

I do think that a certain critical mass requires this to be reconsidered, because private companies without as much regulation could displace people who enjoyed accessibility features under older, more established and regulated companies. That said, there are many products and services on the market today which simply cannot be used by handicapped individuals, and for many companies making these products it would be strictly impossible for them to profitably offer a more accessible version.

EDIT: Initially I said taxi cabs are not required to be wheelchair accessible and made an Uber/Lyft comparison. After looking into it, it seems I'm wrong - NYC taxi cabs, at least, offer wheelchair accessibility, you just need to call for it through dispatch as not every vehicle is properly equipped.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#54

Post by PeterisP »

tobyg123 wrote: post #41
GuiA wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it's not profitable to do that on its own? The "free market takes care of everything" argument is an idealistic position, not something based in reality.

The core of the article is saying that you can't satisfy everyone , and the point of the replier was to point out that, if the need is that great, and there are such large amounts of people with the same issue, the free market will produce an alternative.

The original point was, however, that we do need to serve certain groups even if the number of such people is small and according to the free market it's clearly not worthwhile to produce an alternative.

The way we do currently is a social contract (enforced in law) that mandates exactly the point that you should serve everyone and are required to make accommodations for e.g disabled people.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#55

Post by School-Cotton »

dsacco wrote: post #53
jcoffland wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quoted statement above is blatant discrimination and incriminates the company who wrote it. I'm surprised the company's lawyers allowed it. Much of the legal system in the US says that you cannot ignore the needs of minority groups just because it's not profitable.

How is the statement discriminatory? If a company decided to start a sharing economy-based babysitting service, but doesn't have the requisite resources (or training/certification among workers) to look after special needs children, it's okay for them to not cater to those individuals. It's not as though they have the ability and are denying service - they are choosing not to develop a product or service with accessi…

> Taxi companies are not required to cater to handicapped individuals who are restricted to wheelchairs.

Actually, yes they are. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#56

Post by IanCal »

nostrademons wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #4

That's a good argument against "accessibility". You're probably not getting significant revenue from the screen-reader people.

The benefits of accessibility are largely PR-related: nobody wants to be the company that makes blind peoples' lives more difficult. There may be ADA-compliance issues as well when you get big enough. That said, accessibility is something you do when you're a big company. When you're a startup, work on making it useful to the easy customers, and then only once you have something that lots of screen-reader people want…

I'm not sure about the US but in the UK what you're suggesting would I think be illegal. You shouldn't make things accessible just when you're a large company, that's a really disappointing approach.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#57

Post by BinaryIdiot »

nostrademons wrote: post #10
Animats wrote: post #4

That's a good argument against "accessibility". You're probably not getting significant revenue from the screen-reader people.

The benefits of accessibility are largely PR-related: nobody wants to be the company that makes blind peoples' lives more difficult. There may be ADA-compliance issues as well when you get big enough. That said, accessibility is something you do when you're a big company. When you're a startup, work on making it useful to the easy customers, and then only once you have something that lots of screen-reader people want…

While you have a point I'd say the vast, vast majority of accessibility related things that you can do with mobile apps and web sites are so simple to do it's practically incompetence to not do that and that'll get you 80% of the way there, maybe even more depending on what you're building.

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#59

Post by dsacco »

School-Cotton wrote: post #55
dsacco wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the statement discriminatory? If a company decided to start a sharing economy-based babysitting service, but doesn't have the requisite resources (or training/certification among workers) to look after special needs children, it's okay for them to not cater to those individuals. It's not as though they have the ability and are denying service - they are choosing not to develop a product or service with accessi…

> Taxi companies are not required to cater to handicapped individuals who are restricted to wheelchairs. Actually, yes they are. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/faq/faq_access_veh.shtml

Yes, I saw that right after I made the comment and made an edit :).

Re: Users You Don’t Want

#60

Post by tapeleg »

I think this article only makes sense in the context of the bad example given. An actual good idea for a startup wouldn't have such an obvious "hijacker" subset of consumers that just destroy your business.
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