Monday 19 March 2007

A Response To My Blogs

When you blog, you don’t get to know who if anyone is reading what you write, unless there is a response. In my case, two or three people have verbally told me they read the blog but today I received my first online response which comes in the form of an email.

Anon wrote:
“As someone who is one of the "commercial people" I do not think it is
fair to say that I am ripping people off. I am simply working to help
blind people, and feed my four children.”

My immediate reaction is to say that Anon’s comment is a very fair one. It is absolutely appropriate for companies or charities to charge £100 or nothing for their access software and there is a wide variation in the prices charged in the blindness market-place. But those charging more have a bigger marketing budget to play with and can better influence the purchaser. So perhaps there is a role for the blindness charities to make the full facts available to visually impaired users, especially to those with little money to spare. The ripping off, and perhaps I should not have used those words, only occurs when uninformed poorer users are lead to believe that the only choice is to spend lots of money they don’t have. My personal experience is that most people in this blindness accessibility business are basically very good human beings and the high prices are unintentionally excluding poorer people. i.e. the exclusion is a by-product of market forces.

It would be great to get more feedback.

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