[stylist] New Kindle

[Homme, James]

Hi,
Actually, the matter in this case is Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, which says that colleges must supply accessible stuff to students if they use federal money. That's why the NFB is making colleges stop purchasing Kindles for their students. Accessibility of the Kindle will benefit all blind people, but the issue in this case is with The Rehabilitation Act.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bridgit Pollpeter
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 7:19 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] New Kindle

Plenty of sighted people don't have money, and blind people can have
money; we just aren't encouraged to pursue employment, or certain types
of employment, or we prefer to not work. I don't like making this a
money issue in terms of consumers, and to be frank, it's not a
disability issue at the heart of the matter.

It's about supply and demand, and who's predominantly purchasing a
product. If more blind people made up a population and could access a
Kindle, we would not have an issue. As usual, it's not blindness itself
causing the problem, it's that blind people are a small corner of the
market, and the major corner of the market prevails. Why cater to a
small group when you're already making millions off the larger
cross-section?

If we made up half of the population, more companies would be willing to
install accessibility features in order to serve, and make money from,
us. We only take up like 1% of the populas though, so in terms of
business, it's not worth the time, energy and money to care about 1% of
consumers.

I don't agree, but business is cut-throat. And for the producers of
items like the Kindle, yes, it's about money, but with consumers, no one
cares who's buying it as long as they're buying it and enough people are
buying it. Saying sighted people have money isn't exactly a fair, or
accurate, statement. Especially with the current economy.

To a business, 99% of consumers are purchasing products; why care about
a measley 1%? To them, it doesn't matter who, what or why 1% is what it
is, all a business knows is that a small percentage isn't taking big
business away from them, so they don't give it a second thought, and
when this 1% informs them, it isn't worth the investment.

And obviously if it were a matter of sighted people having money and
blind people not having money, none of us would be upset about this
because we don't have the money to purchase a Kindle. That so many are
angry about the product being inaccessible implies that should it be
accessible, blind people would be buying Kindles just as much as sighted
consumers.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/

"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 29
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:55:12 -0400
From: "Homme, James" <james.homme at highmark.com>
To: Writer's Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] [SPAM] Re:  the new kendle
Message-ID:
        <AB5137F7193A8D49A42CA31303E3FDD57BA83C02 at EXMB1.highmark.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi,
Hay. Sighted people have money.

Jim


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