| The line you hear | What it really means |
| “We’ll pick that up next sprint.” | We hope you’ll forget. |
| “Log it in a private doc – not Jira.” | Don’t ruin our dashboard metrics |
| “You can do it, but don’t expect him to.” | One senior dev refuses, and no one will challenge him. |
| “Of course we care – once we finish the re-brand.” | It’s below the fold on every roadmap. |
They smile. They nod. They say all the right things.
And then quietly stall the work.
Deprioritize it.
Rescope the feature.
Or just… stop answering your emails.
This is how accessibility dies.
Not with a memo, but with silence.
Not by opposition, but by delay.
Not through debate, but through exhaustion.
Why you can’t win alone
You will not outwork structural indifference.
You can advocate, educate, demonstrate – and still be ignored. One leadership shuffle, one tight deadline, one political misstep, and all your momentum disappears.
You need someone with power who will protect the work.
Not just approve it when it’s easy.
Not just smile through the presentation.
Someone who holds the line when it gets uncomfortable.
Because without leadership backing you up, the moment pressure hits, accessibility is the first thing to go.
A true story of pushback – and push through
Apple didn’t start doing accessibility because of lawsuits or industry pressure.
They did it because it was the right thing to do.
In the 1990s, Apple built accessibility into the Mac as a matter of course – Sticky Keys, CloseView, Mouse Keys. Designed not for show, but for people. They didn’t brag about accessibility; they just did it. Seamlessly. Elegantly. Quietly.
But as the company began to struggle, priorities shifted. Accessibility didn’t disappear – but it stopped evolving. It got quieter. The thread was lost.
And then – years later – it was picked up again.
Product manager Mike Shebanek had been making the case for VoiceOver using all the “right” arguments – business cases, market share, long-term value. But the CTO stopped him.
“You don’t seem very excited about any of these,” he said.
It caught Shebanek off guard – but he was right. He wasn’t excited about those arguments.
“I do have something else,” he admitted. “But it sounds kind of crazy.”
The CTO pressed him: “What is it?”
So Shebanek told the truth.
“We really should not just solve the problem of a screen reader. We should really solve the business problem of why accessibility isn’t more available and isn’t more cost-effective. We should build it in, and we should just give it away, and it should get the same love and care and treatment and quality that we give everything else in this company, and it should be on everything we make. Always and forever.”
He paused. “I know that sounds crazy. We’re not going to make any money on this.”
(He had no idea how wrong he’d be.)
But the CTO saw the spark.
“That,” he said, “is something I can sell to Steve.”
The lesson isn’t “find your Steve Jobs.”
It’s that you can lose the thread – and find it again.
You can rebuild. You can remember who you are.
And sometimes, all it takes is one person saying,
“This still matters. Let’s do it right.”
What this section is really saying
- You’re not imagining it – every accessibility lead has these stories.
- Resistance is often polite, spreadsheet-friendly, and deadly.
- You need leadership that will hold the line when it hurts.
- And when that happens – when the penny finally drops – the change can be instant and irreversible.
Next we’ll look at how culture spreads once that door cracks open – because culture is contagious, but so is apathy.