[nfb-talk] Text Based Internet

[Jennifer Aberdeen]

Hi everyone,

A friend and I were having a discussion and I thought I would bring it up 
for discussion here.

My friend, who is not blind but uses a wheelchair, asked me one day last 
week why the blind didn't have their own Internet. Annoyed, I asked him what 
he meant by this question.

He said that he had no problem with us using the same Internet as he did, 
but wouldn't it be easier if we didn't have to wait for graphics etc to 
download while a page was loading.

I told him it wasn't really a big deal, we have trouble enter the characters 
in those verification boxes without help because the box with the character 
in them are graphical.

Anyway, he was arguing with me, saying that we should have our own 
text-based Internet browser because the web developers will never make their 
web pages fully accessible to us bla bla bla. I argued back telling him that 
many web developers have made their websites more accessible and many more 
will with some nagging from us; I told him it was a law under the ADA, which 
started another totally different argument.

Today, he started this argument again, and I finally said, "Having a 
text-based Internet Browser is not going to put an end to the capcha 
problem. This is the only real obstacle we have when using the Internet, 
aside from some totally inaccessible websites and computer programs." Then a 
miracle happened, he agreed and shut up!

Anyway, I thought this might bring about some discussion. In my opinion, my 
friend doesn't know what he's talking about...I'm not sure if I went about 
winning the argument the right way, but I did shut him up, so I'm feeling 
empowered at the moment, lol

Jen