Nice to see you have not given up :)

Seriously, I think it is great that you are still interested. And yes, I agree. As I said in my original post, WAI does occasionally offer inconsistent takes on the subject which certainly does not help matters, though I can see where that is coming from. And since we are quoting here, I would offer this outtake from WCAG 1.0 as well :

“These guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. The guidelines are intended for all Web content developers (page authors and site designers) and for developers of authoring tools. The primary goal of these guidelines is to promote accessibility.”

In later documents, including the WCAG 2.0 draft as well as the introductory document quoted in this present post, they are clearer in delimiting the principle beneficiaries and secondary benefits. But inversely, they recently published a press release about accessibility for rich applications, in which there was an inconsistency between the original press release and the translated French version that could add to the confusion.

Anyway, I am certainly not speaking for WAI or W3C (gawd forbid), just offering information that can contribute to a better understanding and support my views on the matter, obviously. And I am aware that a lot of people may not agree with me and I can live with that.

I just want people to think things through a bit more and consider the larger issues.

Thanks for your comment.

impressive post and I think I’m nearly convinced.

Unfortunatly the W3C itself seems to be ambiguous about the objectives of Web Accessibility. To quote the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0:

For those unfamiliar with accessibility issues pertaining to Web page design, consider that many users may be operating in contexts very different from your own: […] They may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection. […] They may be in a situation where their eyes, ears, or hands are busy or interfered with (e.g., driving to work, working in a loud environment, etc.). They may have an early version of a browser, a different browser entirely, a voice browser, or a different operating system.

And:

By following these guidelines, content developers can create pages that transform gracefully. Pages that transform gracefully remain accessible despite any of the constraints described in the introduction, including physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities, work constraints, and technological barriers [sic!].

That sounds like universality to me. Maybe that’s were the misunderstanding (or - to keep the metaphor -the division into two camps) comes from in the first place.