The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You • Hacker News Board

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#191

Post by magarnicle » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 11:36 PM UTC

Drakexor wrote: post #29

The author seems to be screaming into the void here. The task of rebuilding infrastructure is mountainous compared to attempting new technological solutions. I do agree with his rant about clean and semantic HTML being nessecary for accessibility. It's too often overlooked (as I scramble to check my sites for alt-text on images)

Maybe, but regulations do have a widespread impact on issues like this. Disabled access is a legal requirement and so we have ramps, despite the extra cost. Asking for better regulation to lead to better ramps is reasonable.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#192

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 11:38 PM UTC

ppedra wrote: post #101

Wow, that`s very true... > My disability is not a tragedy of biology. It is a failure of infrastructure. Everybody is different. Tall, short, strong, week, two legs, one leg, short sighted or blind. So it makes a lot of sense to point (as a mistake) that our infrastructure favors one type over the others. > the "Checkout" button is labeled "Button_Graphic_v2_Final" This is a very good point.

[deleted]

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#193

Post by magarnicle » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 11:39 PM UTC

> My disability is not a tragedy of biology.

I find these sorts of statements about disability over-correcting. It is a tragedy of biology that my brother cannot run but I can. What else could it be?

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#194

Post by TulliusCicero » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 11:42 PM UTC

hamdingers wrote: post #49

TulliusCicero wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really cynical way to attack people who are at least sort of trying to help. And obviously the inventions of "a ramp" and "slightly wider door" already exist; those aren't a matter of invention, they're a matter of regulations and enforcement.

Trying to help does not give you a free pass. Pushing a wheelchair user up a ramp without asking their permission first is both "trying to help" and inconsiderate (and scary and dangerous). Before inventing a more advanced stair climbing wheelchair, you should ask a few wheelchair users if stairs are really the issue they need solving.

That's a pretty ridiculous analogy. Simply inventing something doesn't force the invention onto anyone.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#195

Post by perpetuallunch » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 11:44 PM UTC

xboxnolifes wrote: post #149

perpetuallunch wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> He’s been mayor of New York for, what, 8 months? > Give that guy a chance to properly fuck things up before you pass judgment. I really, really , urge you to try seeing the hypocrisy between this statement and your previous comment.

[flagged]

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#196

Post by magarnicle » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 11:46 PM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #97

The author's definition of a "Disability Dongle" perfectly describes the early versions of motorized wheelchairs. Why is it such an obvious conclusion that we need remake the world to be compatible with the previous generation of disability dongle instead of building the next? At the very least, couldn't we do both?

I don't know why you are getting down-votes. If you've spent any time around a motorized wheelchair you would see they are still pretty bad tech.

The wheelchair companies were not the ones who managed to produce the e-bikes and e-scooters, even though they seemed well placed to do so.

It's actually taking an e-bike and turning it into a wheelchair that looks a lot more like the future and not a "dongle" (plus the creator has first-hand knowledge of disability): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuMg0QwKAGI

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#197

Post by tzs » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 12:50 AM UTC

> I don’t need a stair-climbing wheelchair that costs $30,000 and requires a maintenance crew

But someday many people might need wheelchairs that include some functionality to help with obstacles and are affordable. Those primitive impractical machines engineers build now are where they figure out much of what will go into those later machines.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#198

Post by dualvariable » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 12:56 AM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #6

While I can understand the frustration and the author makes some good points, a lot of the anger feels oddly misplaced. Yes, engineer types want to solve problems with inventions rather than overhauling the entire nation's infrastructure. Maybe, just maybe, that's because inventing something is actually within their grasp, whereas wholesale replacing every civil engineer and architect in the country isn't? Or replaci…

> but it's not the tech companies' fault that it's perennially underfunded, it's politicians and the voters who put them there.

Disagree there.

Tech companies and their owners are part of the system of monied interests that have entirely captured our government, and that's why we don't have the funding to fix all our infrastructure.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#199

Post by Agreeing6 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 1:01 AM UTC

It was a huge shock. The content itself, of course—but most of all, the size of the text.

I’m building a website for users of a local disability transportation service. I had read the WCAG guidelines and tested the site, but I didn’t realize that the text was too small for some middle-aged users until they had to take out their reading glasses.

Knowing semantic HTML wasn’t enough, and WCAG testing alone was obviously insufficient.

I had spent far too long overlooking something as simple as font size. Just font size.

Re: The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

#200

Post by antonvs » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #112

antonvs wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, just maybe, that's because inventing something is actually within their grasp The problem is that inventing a solution that no-one needs or wants and then using venture money to hype it up feels like rubbing salt in a wound for the very people they're claiming to try to help. The point is they're not actually trying to help those people. They're using them as a marketing tool to further their own ambition to…

These nameless people could very well want to help people. A device that costs as much as a Honda Civic? Yes, that's exactly the kind of stuff that happens as you attempt to mature a product. I was working on a drone automation system at another company. The initial prototypes were also in the Honda Civic multiplier range. The companies that bought into us knew the price tag. The customers who wanted conventional pro…

> These nameless people could very well want to help people.

The criticism is that what they’re choosing to work on is misguided, if the goal is truly to help people. The cost is just one of several factors, and one point about it is that the cost will never come down far enough to make sense, if the fundamental nature of the product isn’t in fact beneficial to the intended users.

It seems that there’s a sizable group who just want their ego stroked about how they’re “making the world a better place,” and other such drivel. Whether that’s actually true doesn’t matter to them, and they’re not going to think about it deeply enough to make any difference.