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Reply To: | VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List |
Date: | Wed, 8 Jul 1998 03:29:57 -0700 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
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Peter,
>I would certainly enjoy this, but I don't want my particular needs to
>translate into a mandate for movie companies and theaters. If the benefits
>of making this accommadation exceed the costs, it will get done. That is a
>given of the free market.
This is not a given at all and government mandates require many things of
businesses. Take a look at your phone bill. Do you know that you pay a
tax to support the TDD relay system used by people with hearing impairments?
In the United States it used to cost someone with a hearing impairment well
over one hundred dollars to buy a closed caption decoder simple to receive
closed captioning. It was a government mandate that now makes this
technology part of every television set sold in this country.
Were the free market given free run, I doubt many rural areas would have
telephone service even today. But when the government decided that
telephone service was essential to life, it mandated that phone companies
serve many rural areas, despite the fact that it was a more costly
proposition to wire these areas.
Even today the reaction of many in the movie industry is, "Why would
someone who's blind go to the movies when they can't see?" So with that
attitude do you really think they are going to imagine putting descriptions
into movies as a default.
Your idea about a group to attend the movies is fine but should I be
limited to socialization or watching a movie on one particular night or
with a certain group of people. The point is that technology makes
something possible for greater freedom of choice and independence. Why
shoot it in the foot.
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