As accessibility professionals we often feel that we have to get (corporate) buy-in by saying that "accessibility is not only for disabled people, but for everyone", sometimes referring to the curb cut effect. By saying this, we hope to make a business case by removing the emphasis on disabled people and instead put the focus on a vague broader population (that is, the abled). I am 100% guilty of having made this argument in the past, but now I see some downsides of this type of thinking.
I like to think the definition of "inclusion" being the explicit state in which people who, in historical and/or socio-economic context and its corresponding power structures, are disadvantaged. Perhaps due to their gender identity, sexuality or (dis)ability. I emphasise "explicit" because in order to be inclusive following this definition, you have to consider the needs and rights of these groups. As such, we should consider the (possible) consequences of removing the emphasis from the excluded.
In recent years we have seen more videos on the internet having closed captions. Historically this has been most useful to the deaf and hard of hearing, since viewers are no longer dependent on sound alone to watch a video. With the rise of (short-form) video content, the "discovery" of closed captions has proved to be useful to the wider public. Videos can be consumed in places where we might not want to play audio. For example, we can still enjoy a video in a quiet waiting room, hide what we're watching on our phones from people in the same room, and continue eating our crunchy crisps even during movie scenes with lots of dialogue. As a result, we see advancements in technologies such as audio recognition and translation, which unlocks the possibilities to consume videos in more day-to-day contexts.
However, in this push for widespread caption use, we started making kinetic (animated) captions that add flashiness to a clip in expense of those who need the subtitles to appear in a predictable place on the screen without it disappearing too fast. This can be due to many reasons, such as vestibular or concentration disorders, but also if the captions are not in the user's native tongue. This appropriation of closed captions has now successfully managed to exclude some audiences that are dependent on them.
Captions aside, why do native language speakers get to enjoy clips captioned in their language much more than native sign language speakers?
To take another example from web development: we often associate JavaScript with inaccessible and bloated websites. They often move away from HTML semantics in favour of custom and visually-biased implementations, are slow to load and do not guarantee resilience in the same way HTML and CSS do. We come across well-intentioned discussions and tutorials online on how we can make JavaScript-less components, such as CSS-only dropdowns or hamburger menus so that our websites become more performant and better "for everyone".
However, in doing so, we stop caring about how assistive technologies need to know the semantic relationship between toggle buttons and the elements they disclose, their ARIA state, their focus order and so on. If we cared about the needs of disabled people, we would realise that JavaScript is not necessarily the enemy here, and that the discussion surrounding JavaScript and accessibility is more nuanced than initially thought. In fact, until we get more modern HTML standards, we often have no choice but to use JavaScript to ensure the most accessible experience. This is especially the case when we move away from making HTML components and towards components that act like (native) UI elements. In many cases, when you use ARIA, you become responsible to add the appropriate JavaScript to make sure that the component works in predictable ways.
Although I cannot pinpoint the causes of such developments, I can look to myself when I tried to rationalise the "curb-cut effect" argument in the past. We can also look at how disability is represented in our society.
Do we avoid the focus on the disadvantaged because of stigma surrounding it?
Proponents of the "identity first perspective" in the person first versus identity first debate argue that by addressing the disability, you are also addressing the social injustices associated with it. Not addressing it is a symptom of stigma and focuses the burden on the disabled person in question.
Do we think that the argument holds more weight because you frame the issue from the perspective of the abled?
That sounds like (internalized) ableism to me.
Do we think that disabled people do not generate revenue?
In any case, I hope we can work towards a professional work environment in which we don't feel the need to appeal to abled people to do the specialist work that we offer.
Let's just say accessibility is for disabled people.
And that that's absolutely okay.