Guitarman, it costs approximately 150000 (one hundred and fifty thousand dollars) per year for each programmer assigned to a project like JAWS or windows eyes.  It costs less for support staff - probably only between 40 and 80k, but it's still pretty significant.

Even if it only takes one engineer and one support guy to maintain the product (which is probably a serious underestimate), that's still around $200k per year minimum, and at 500 dollars per copy they'll have to sell 4k copies per year just to cover personnel.  In reality, costs are probably a lot higher than that, and sales are probably declining every year due to things like NVDA.  I wouldn't expect JAWS to be a significant player in a few years.

Nobody's saying only the"blind community" wants free stuff. I've seen plenty of examples of sighted folks demanding it. But it is a very common demand for a lot of the blind people I've met. The amusing ones are the ones who'll refuse to engage in activities unless they can get discounts based on their blindness, yet don't really admit that they're blind. I've known quite a lot of people like that. They're quite common in the area where I live, as are some of the more condesceding people I spoke of in one of m earlier post. but then again it's somehting of a hotbed for the more raddical NFB-minded folks, and their extremist views. I tend to try not to demand things when I go out, even in situations where I might possibly be justified, simply because I don't want to perpetuate the bad reputation we have in some parts of the sighted world. A sighted person meets one rude, demanding blind person and they're likely to assume we're all like that and treat any future blind people they meet differently. I used to know and hang out with such a person whose answer to every perceived slight was to threaten to take the so-called offender to court and she expected me to be the same way. When the Twin Falls public library refused, understandably in my opinion, to allow her to put braille labels on the packaging of all the audiobooks, she called me up trying to get my support for her ridiculous plan to take the library to court for discrimination, never mind that if you ask nicely for help finding a specific book the library staff are more than happy to help you. I pointed that out as well as the fact that not only blind people listen to audiobooks and so there would be absolutely no guarantee that that braille label would still be there the next time a sighted listen checked the book back in. So Marie would have had to replace labels and would inevitably have gotten bent out of shape about that.

@BrianP,
I actually have to agree with a lot of that post. I have indeed come across those blind extremists who call it "descrimonating" when something doesn't happen their way, like the library system. That's what apps such as tap tap see are for if you want to independently find lables. Else, ask a library staff to help you.

  Also, now that I've calmed down, I can think of more examples of how sighted people are also all about getting free or cheap stuff. I've actually heard of sighted people say stuff like "I won't shop at that store because their prices are too high." Also, people are looking for the cheapest gass, groceries, electronics etc etc.
  And don't you notice how, when stores are putting there stuff on sail (making it, "cheaper,") for a limited time, how the stores flood with sighted people?
  I mean even on Black Friday, people get killed and trampled going through stores, because the sighted folks are too busy fighting over the cheap stuff.
And believe it or not, some self-entitled sighted person called 911 because she clamed that her water bill was too high, and that the city wouldn't do anything about it.

  Now, I'm not condemning sighted folks, nor am I launching an attack, contredictory or other, on anyone here on this forum. These are just a lot of the examples I see of sighted people who think there above all and should get free stuff. However, post 28, you also proove a point. I've seen those disabled people who try theeir hardest, and I've also seen those who think they should get in the front of lines, and people should do things for them, etc etc. So, to summarize this? I agree with both the most recent posts.

  On a completely different note, wow, I didn't know it costed that much to develop products like Jaws. And why does it? Nvda, which in many ways surpasses Jaws even though it's in its 8th year of development and jaws is in it's 16, clearly doesn't cost anything, as it's being handed out for free. And Microsoft narrator? I could perhaps see that progressing, to suit the direction windows is going in anyway. Personally, there are many aspects of the OS I don't agree with, but that's not my choice and complaining of such things here would be quite frivolous.

  I could see things such as the braille note costing a lot, as it's a computer, speciffically developed for the blind.

True. And I believe that also requires a wifi connection to use. Perhaps apps with OCR would work with such things as labeling? Or is there speciffic apps for that?

Dark regarding what you said earlier I was rather alarmed when I found out the UK version of the Sendaro GPS app was branded as the RNIB Navigator app, with a note saying the RNIB receives no money from the proceeds. That strikes me very much as them offering Sendaro a major branding advantage in the UK among those who don't do their research on the subject.

As for the BrailleNote which someone mentioned, I think the need for such specialised devices is quickly fading now we have access to mainstream devices such as those running iOS. An iPod Touch with either a Bluetooth braille display or Bluetooth keyboard can do everything a BrailleNote can and more at a much reduced price.

@Steve, I'm afraid I really don't see the fact that sighted people want free stuff as relevant. Most people (especially in our capitalist society), want stuff for free as a given and would prefer to pay less than more. There are many groups who justify their acqusition of free stuff, the eldily, people of all stripes of disability from tetraplegia to mental illness, army veterans, children of the rich or politically powerful etc.

The question at hand is to what extent if any should being blind justify getting something for free, particularly access technology, and whether some blind people have an over baring attitude of entitlement. What other groups in society do doesn't really make a difference to the arguement.

@Brad, I find that sort of behaviour worryingly common, which is as I said why I largely avoid blindness organizations.

Just to play devil's advocate here, there are circumstances where it seems that accepting, or even requesting free stuff is reasonable.

At one disability conference I attended, a disability advocate asked my opinion on a quite interesting story. This was of a man who was tetraplegic and had no movement in his legs. He was also a very skilled violinist.

The health service were going to spend a hundred thousand pounds on an operation involving some very advanced technology to give him the ability to walk. He stated however "if your going to give me a hundred thousand pounds then by me a stradavarious violin" his reasoning being that he valued having the strad far more than he valued being able to walk.

The professor in question asked my opinion on this story.

My thought, was that as the government in the form of the health service were the ones providing this, it was not up to the government to buy people stradavariouseses my precious! .

That the government did bare a responsability to provide equality to all it's citizens, and so provide the technology to give the man a similar ability to walk as everyone else, but that sinse not everyone owns a stradavarious, that wasn't the government's business.

Indeed based on this story if something comes up where I could screw someone out of something due to my disability, but don't believe I am entitled to it, I've taken to refering to it as "a stradavarious" for example when i was given my equipment grant for university, I needed a digital recorder to have articles and chapters of books read, however sinse I wanted a more fancy sterrio digital recorder to do podcasts, what effectively i did was have the grant provide the price of a mono olympus recorder, then paid the difference myself to get my rowland with it's sterrio mikes.

As I said in the first post, in a perfect world the government would provide all access technology on this basis. Sinse we don't live in that perfect world the technology needs to be developed and provided by companies who require paying, however this is I believe an area where a compromise is possible.

One example in the Uk at least is free bus travel, sinse the plane fact is it costs a hell of a lot more and is far more inconvenient to use public transport if you don't own a car, which is in fact why a lot of county counsels offer free bus passes (shame about the audio announcements but there you go).

My brother has on several occasions had arguements with bus drivers about the fact that yes, his pass does allow him free bus travel in the early mornings, which seems fare enough given he has a long journey each day by bus.

I will also say that this principle of equalized access shouldn't be confused with the idea of a disabled person being compitant and not inconveniencing those around them with unreasonable demands, like Brad's example of the extreperous pizza ordering fellow.

One llast point I have not yet considdered myself fully however, is whether in addition to this idea of compromising on equal access, there is some degree of mileage in having some sort of compensation for the discriminatory and generally unpleasant attitudes of others, sinse the plane fact is being blind is a pain in the arse and if you have a disability, however equal your technology, access and amounts of effort in doing things is, other people will not treat you this way or considder you reasonably.

What form this sort of compensation should take I don't know, it's dam hard to put a monetary value on social injustice, indeed it seems that the two things are categorically different, but it does seem with all of the crap that any blind person who actually tries to get on in the world and live with the attitudes of the sighted majority rather than just disappearing into a little blind hole, should have some sort of recompense, though what sort of form this should take I don't know exactly.

I appreciate the point about running a company, however equally there is another side to it, sinse I am not always convinced how much prophet is being made by these companies relative to their costs, especially given the number of government contracts people like freedom scientific have and the fact that other accessible software doesn't cost the same price.

Take blind square as an example. I paid £16 for it, which is relatively expensive for an Iphone ap but peanuts in comparison to say the thousand or so I'd need to pay for a program like Jaws. Now undoubtedly blindsquare is a much simpler program and took less development time, however if the arguement about paying a developer's yearly salary is absolutely true, then logically all accessible software products which were developed by the same number of programmers should cost roughly the same. After all the projected sales for blind square are likely much the same as those for Jaws, indeed if anything possibly less sinse Blindsquare is far less likely to be bought by governmental agencies and also will only be bought by Vi Iphone users.

Even before the ap store craze, contrast the price of something like Jaws with Sueprnova which has always been half as expensive, indeed my initial license was £600 where as for jaws it would've been £1100.

This is undoubtedly a lot of money, but the fact that there is fluctuation in the prices of similar peaces of software does rather imply that there is a degree of greed going on here. which is really the central issue and one of the problems with access tech, sinse we can't be exactly sure what the sales figures for someone like Freedom scientific or dolphin are and how much they are actually making relative to development costs.

In any capitalist system, theoretically competition is a limiting factor on price. If I am a farmer and am selling my carrots for two pounds a bunch but the farmer next door selling his carrots for one pound a bunch, ---- well obviously people are going to go to him and not me so I will need to alter my prices.

In access tech however, there are very few producers of the products, which frequently means people can charge what the hell they like sinse there isn't the competition to drive the price down correctly and people often don't have the choice to go elsewhere. To use my carrot example, it is as if I owned all the land and so if people wanted carrots they had to buy them at two quid a bunch from me or nothing, ---- which is pretty much the way most of the business world is tending these days, though that is another arguement, (oopse, my marxism is showing), .

My point steve, is that Tom is correct, some people will always try to get stuff for free, that is a given.

The question under discussion is whether  firstly this attitude is (as Briant suggested in his first post), more prevailent in the blind community, and secondly, whether there is or is not any  justification to that attitude.

Look at this another way. Imagine that you own a shop and someone like the eldily person in Tom's example asks you for a discount.

Now, firstly, do you believe that eldily people are entitled to discountts? and secondly, if an eldily person asks you for a discount, how do you perceive them and old people in general? are they seen as worthy of respect, or do you view them as constantly winjing and wanting stuff for free?

This is the issue at hand. Is it true that blind people more than other groups in society have a prevailent attitude of wanting free stuff, and secondly, is there any justification to this attitude.

It doesn't matter particularly what other people do or do not do sinse manifestly a sighted person is not blind, and thus would not be claiming something for free on the same grounds that a blind person would be doing so, and it is those grounds that are under discussion.

I could not walk into my local shop and say "please give me an over 65 discount because I am over 65" sinse I am manifestly not. In the same light, none of the sighted people from Tom's example could say "we're entitled to free stuff because we're blind" sinse they aren't blind.

I must admit I do suspect there is something of a bias in the entitlement attitude among blind people, because of the specialist schools you mention and also the plane and simple fact that yeah, life is a lot harder without eyeballs, and it is a natural human response that if you have less than everyone else you want the same, or at least some sort of compensation.

To me, the interesting exercise here is analysing the different possible responses and attitudes, teasing out the differences between "the bad attitude", the desire for preferential treatment and weaseling as much as possible because you lack working eyeballs, and the "good attitude" the desire for equal access and how best to achieve it in a compitant manner. Deciding where these attitudes come from, what the principle differences between them are, and what our responses should be in terms of buying technology and life generally is exactly the sort of thing that blind people should be doing, throughout life as well as theoreticaly, indeed it is just these sorts of questions that I've spent most of my creative work in ethics thinking about.

Hi there dark.

  Let me answer your questions here. If I ran into a shop, and an elderly person came in and said, "Can I have a discount on this item? I'm old." I would ggive them a harsh "no, why should you? I'm young and don't get discounts." and make them charge the same price everyone else would.
If another elderly person walked in 5 minutes later, I'd treat them as what they are to me, a stranger. I wouldn't give the elderly the label of "entitling."
  Now say there were 100 elderlies who came into my shop in, say, a week, demanding discounts, I might rethink my judgement of them. I can see how people will give blind people that same label, Brad gave me a perfect reason to agree with some of them in post 34. If I were that pizza man, I wouldn't quite no what to think. I'd see Brad's kindness, but then I'd see the complete rudeness and self-entitled pitty aditude of his friend. I wouldn't give a judgement to the blind community, though I'd be a bit weary of them.
  If most, or perhaps all, of the blind folks I met were this way, then I would avoid anyone with a cane and/or unfocused eyes.
  That's just me though. I'm not that judgemental, I try to give people second chances.

To answer the question of whether the entitlement aditude is more prevalent among the blind, I'd have to say "no!"
  I've seen plenty of blind folks who sharply turned down such offers. The reason I think a lot of thes blind people feel so entitled, is that sighted people treat them differently. Like that poster who said he could feel out a form and get something for free, now that's a primary example. Plus you gotta think of the parents and/or teachers of some of these blind people. I've also experienced times where people wanted to park in handycap or get in the front of amusement park lines because I, the blind person in town, was with them. So I believe the sighted people are basically milking and feeding the entitlement mentality of the blind, by pretty much spoiling them wrotten or telling them how they should live their lives.

If your physical condition makes it difficult to use software or hardware which by design has been designed with deliberate difference toward people with special needs you absolutely ought to enjoy a human right to some kind of compensation.

If companies wont by voluntary choice make the engineering decisions necessary for disabled persons, the law should provide legal recourse including punitive fines or jail time.

It's not a case of unjustified entitlement but a matter of human rights.

The thread starter is difficult to take seriously when considering that he completely neglects the human rights issue.

Do I think that I generally have a human right to free stuff?

Absolutely  not.

But I think that I have a right to equal accessibility to the same opportunities as sighted persons of equal intelligence, and that I should not have to pay an extra price for the mere privilege of accessibility.

Accessibility is a human right, and every blind deriding this attitude as unjust entitlement is no better than Jews collaborating with the nazis.

Accessibility only comes with a cost, because the government, corporations and other actors are conditioned to view the needs of disabled as as an afterthought rather than a core requirement the law might impose on providing goods and services.

severestormsteve1 worte:

And what do we deserve?

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it's clear that  we deserve societal equality and not merely being treated like  well behaving house pets.

Equality before society and the law is and should not be negotiable.

I understand that it's a very American thing to assume that those with the weakest physical abilities ought to be thankful, beg for favors, and sleep under bridges, but here in Europe we actually want the government to enforce equal opportunities.

Sure in the world of mad right-wing mythology, the welfare queen is herself to blame for being poor rather than working her ass off in McDonalds.

We should all be grateful for being offered the opportunity to eat at the table of the big corporations and not whine about lack of opportunities.

Hello guys,
I myself think that a good game, a good program or ap that you would like to have on your pocket requires a lot of work and consiquently a lot of money. Just think about some games who are not for blinds, like: Fifa, Pro evolution, Grand Theft Auto products, Mortal combat and more others are not for free and if you like to get them on your computer, you will be required to spend just like 70 or 100$ to buy them. So if you'd like to have good programs and games and other stuff like that, nobody will work as you expect. Think yourself, would you spend a whole year 12 hours a day, or even more, coding and finding new ways to make games more accessible? Can you imagine doing this for many years in a row?
I know it sounds harshing in your ears, and I myself, like you, do not like to pay for games and apps, but remember, nobody is going to work voluntarily for decades without getting anything in return, except the pleasure that would offer his products after the release.
Hope you understood me.
Wish you a good time!