Lunaphied
@Lunaphied

We talk a lot about accessibility and disability. But what we don't often hear discussed is the concept of "technological disability". That is, disability primarily due to limited technology. So let's talk about it a bit.


lapisnev
@lapisnev

Most of the issues you're describing as "technological disability" overlap with "being poor". I've thought about this problem from the point of view of trying to extend the life of your shit computers you had to hobble together from garbage parts, because that used to be me.


I grew up surrounded by computers and technology but it was never particularly good or recent. Lots of it was stuff I saved from going to the trash because I didn't have money. My best computer circa 2016 contained a Core 2 Duo that was free from a friend, and a GeForce 7300GT that had all manner of repairs short of literal duct tape.

This hardware would simply not have been usable running Windows 10. I tried it some time later after I had replaced it with a better computer. It technically worked but slogged horrendously, especially over the years as the programs I wanted to run on it bloated to consume all available resources. I have a laptop I used for college that was monstrously capable running Windows 7 in 2012 but sucks ass struggling to run Windows 8.1 in 2023.

Companies just don't care about you. They can't make any money off your broke ass struggling to keep a pile of crap connected to the internet, so you get left behind. It takes too much technical knowledge and commitment to keep a shit computer working indefinitely; I can do it but I don't expect an average person to know where to start. Some people absolutely do not have the means to just throw it out and buy a new one like companies want you to do, so they're stuck up shit creek, I guess..?

This is going to get harder for people as companies keep moving their services to Android and iOS apps that require a recent software version, and now tons of cheap second-hand phones are simply not viable for someone who doesn't have the means to buy a new one, but is required to have a phone number to sign up for an account to use a job application website/app to get a job to afford the phone to have a phone number.


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in reply to @Lunaphied's post:

This reminds me of a post I read a while back, "The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML." (I think it was originally shared here on Cohost, but I'm not sure by who.)

The author describes how someone was using a PSP to access UK.gov — I was already aware of the UK.gov efforts in general accessibility, but that led me down a fun research tangent into their philosophy and guidelines on progressive enhancement:

I agree it's definitely an issue that people should pay more attention to, especially for essential services. I don't really know how I feel about calling it "technological disability," though. As a disabled person who is working in accessibility somewhat... It doesn't feel quite right? Maybe it's a common term that I'm not familiar with, but I'm uncomfortable with it for some reason. I'm not sure I have an alternative, but I thought I'd mention it.

Huh, that's an interesting post. We appreciate your bringing it to our attention, it has a similar perspective.

We appreciate your feedback on the term and we're sorry it made you uncomfortable. Our thoughts as a disabled person here are mostly that we think disability comes in many forms and that as society changes, lack of access to technology itself becomes a type of disability.

Unfortunately, in the process of writing this, that point was squeezed out a bit more than we meant it to be, as we lacked concrete examples beyond limited personal experience. So the focus ended up on background establishment and a few tie-ins to how this is related to more traditional accessibility topics.

We hope that gives a bit of perspective to why we chose the term

Back in 2017 a coworker and I noticed that we both used an iPhone 3G. Browsing was near impossible, and I had access to very few apps. We were both disabled, and our poverty was a result of our disability and societal attitudes towards supporting disabled people (ie. as little as possible). I do feel like disability and exclusion often go hand in hand, but they aren't always the same thing.

We'd just like to share, as a matter of a fun example. Our smartphone died over a year ago, so we've been stuck with an iPhone 4. Most websites simply refuse to load, as a matter of expired certificates. The ones that do load, are barely functional, get stuck, crash the browser or don't display well. Surprisingly, Youtube works phenomenally well all things considered, and we don't get ads! Zero ads, no midrolls, no beginning or end ads.

We can't access any new apps either, so effectively we are left with a phone / alarm clock / youtube / single video game machine.

This is what I was talking about in my reply-share when I said it takes a lot of tech skill to keep older tech viable. :P

If you want to get more websites loading, you will need to find and install the updated ISRG Root X1 certificate. Most websites still won't work due to missing features in your outdated Safari but you can at least attempt to load them.

If you want to be able to install old versions of more apps (a handful still work without doing this by sheer luck), you will need to jailbreak and install the Checkmate Store! tweak. (Important detail if anyone actually tries this: DO NOT update everything in Cydia all at once right after jailbreaking very old iOS devices! You'll run out of RAM halfway through and brick the device. Update packages one or two at a time.)