Accessibility becomes selling points
What was once a basic human right becomes a competitive advantage. What should be standard infrastructure becomes premium features. This is how capitalism colonizes justice.
The commodification pipeline
Every accessibility improvement follows the same trajectory:
Stage 1: Advocacy groups identify genuine need
Stage 2: Early adopters implement basic solutions
Stage 3: Tech companies notice market opportunity
Stage 4: Features become selling points
Stage 5: Premium accessibility emerges
The original need—equal access—gets buried under layers of market positioning and brand differentiation.
Apple’s accessibility theater
Apple markets accessibility features as innovation rather than obligation. “Breakthrough technology for the blind” sells better than “basic functionality we should have included from day one.”
Their marketing emphasizes the company’s moral superiority rather than users’ actual needs. The narrative centers Apple as the generous provider rather than accessibility as fundamental infrastructure.
This transforms accessibility from a right into a gift—one that can be withdrawn, modified, or monetized at will.
The premium accessibility trap
When accessibility becomes a selling point, it creates artificial scarcity around basic inclusion.
Standard accessibility: Basic compliance, minimal investment
Premium accessibility: Advanced features, subscription required
Enterprise accessibility: Full inclusion, corporate rates only
This tiered system means the most vulnerable users often can’t afford the best accessibility solutions. The market mechanism that’s supposed to improve accessibility actually restricts it.
Corporate virtue signaling economics
Companies discovered that accessibility features generate positive PR value far exceeding their development costs.
One accessibility engineer can produce enough marketing material to justify an entire corporate social responsibility campaign. The ROI on accessibility theater often surpasses the ROI on actual accessibility improvements.
This creates perverse incentives: companies optimize for visible, marketable accessibility features rather than comprehensive, usable ones.
The inspiration porn industrial complex
Accessibility marketing relies heavily on inspiration narratives that center non-disabled audiences’ feelings rather than disabled users’ experiences.
“Despite their disability, they can now…” framing positions disability as something to overcome rather than accommodation as something to provide. This emotional manipulation sells products while reinforcing ableist assumptions.
The disabled person becomes a prop in the company’s virtue story rather than a customer with specific needs.
Feature fragmentation
When accessibility becomes competitive differentiation, it fragments across platforms and vendors. Each company implements their own “innovative” solutions that don’t work together.
Instead of universal standards, we get proprietary accessibility ecosystems. Users must choose between companies based on which disabilities their platforms support best.
This creates accessibility silos that actually reduce overall inclusion while appearing to expand it.
The compliance theater economy
Legal accessibility requirements create minimum viable inclusion—just enough to avoid lawsuits, not enough to provide genuine access.
Companies hire accessibility consultants to audit for legal compliance rather than usability. They implement technical requirements without considering actual user workflows.
This generates an entire industry around meeting the letter of accessibility law while violating its spirit.
Subscription-based inclusion
The SaaS model extends into accessibility services. Basic inclusion becomes free tier, advanced accessibility requires premium subscriptions.
Voice recognition, screen readers, alternative input methods—all potentially monetized as value-added services rather than provided as basic infrastructure.
This creates a two-tier accessibility system where your ability to participate in digital society depends on your ability to pay recurring fees.
The accessibility washing cycle
Companies now use accessibility investments to justify other harmful practices.
“We’re inclusive because we support screen readers” while designing interfaces that create anxiety and addiction. “We care about disabilities” while implementing features that trigger seizures.
Accessibility becomes moral laundering for broader systemic harm.
Performance metrics vs. actual inclusion
What gets measured gets optimized. Accessibility metrics focus on quantifiable implementation rather than qualitative experience.
Measured: Number of alt-text tags, contrast ratios, keyboard navigation paths
Not measured: Cognitive load, emotional safety, social inclusion
This creates technically compliant but practically unusable accessibility implementations.
The innovation narrative trap
Framing accessibility as innovation implies it’s optional enhancement rather than required infrastructure.
“Revolutionary new features for disabled users” suggests these users weren’t considered in the original design. Innovation language treats inclusion as bonus content rather than foundational requirement.
This narrative structure allows companies to take credit for solving problems they created through exclusionary design.
Value extraction from vulnerability
The accessibility market represents systematic value extraction from society’s most vulnerable populations.
Disabled users pay premium prices for basic functionality, provide free labor through feedback and advocacy, and generate marketing value through inspiration narratives—all while receiving substandard products disguised as innovation.
This isn’t inclusion. It’s exploitation with accessibility branding.
The systemic alternative
Real accessibility requires treating inclusion as infrastructure rather than product features.
Universal design principles applied from the beginning eliminate most accessibility “innovations.” Disabled users involved in design processes prevent most accessibility “solutions.”
But infrastructure thinking doesn’t generate selling points. It doesn’t create competitive advantages. It doesn’t produce inspiring marketing campaigns.
Which is precisely why the market mechanism fails accessibility needs.
Beyond the selling point
When accessibility stops being a selling point, it becomes normal. When inclusion isn’t remarkable, it’s universal.
The goal isn’t better accessibility marketing. It’s making accessibility so fundamental to design that marketing it feels absurd.
Like marketing the fact that your building has doors.
The transformation of accessibility into selling points reveals how capitalism colonizes even the most basic human needs, converting requirements for inclusion into opportunities for profit and differentiation.