Accessability is a pretty big topic of conversation in my circles, both physical accessability and virtual accessability, ex. having a wheelchair accessible building, or making sure your site is readable both visually and with a screen reader, but today I want to talk about another kind of accessability, and that is accessability for poor people.
Now, this may just be because I'm a filthy commie, but I believe that a everyone should have access to the same information and resources as any other person, regardless of their financial status. And yeah, this is absolutely idealist of me, I understand that isn't the way the world works, I understand that the more money you have the more resources and information you have access to. But I also don't believe in perpetuating that when I have the power not to, I think if you have the power to make something accessible it is your duty to humanity to do so.
When I was growing up my family was poor, the only computer in the house was over 10 years old, and struggled to do basic tasks, and when that finally gave out we didn't have a computer in the house for years, aside from junky hand-me-down laptops that were also several years old and severely out of date. We would boot linux onto them and get a couple more years out of them before they gave up altogether, one of them didn't have internet access at all. Almost all of my friends (who were also poor) didn't have computers either, they were lucky if they had their own phone, and those that did have a computer weren't as poor as the rest of us. (not just because they owned a computer) After I moved out I didn't have a computer at all, until the end of last year, and I was only able to afford one due to sheer luck. But I had a phone. I did everything on my phone because that was all I had, and I only had a phone because my grandfather was willing to pay for it. I was (and still am) poor.
I don't say any of this to garner sympathy, I just want the reader to understand, growing up, computers were a luxury. In todays day and age, pretty much everyone has a smartphone, right? I mean, even most of the homeless people in my city have cellphones. (I know this because my job allows people to use the outdoor outlets to charge them) Most people I know do most of their internet activity on their phone, even if they have a computer, but especially the ones who can't afford a computer.
Now I really love the anti-web3 movement that I've seen on the web, a resurgence of people making their own sites, compiling and cataloging information and resources on various different topics. I think it's a beautiful thing and it should be encouraged. Wether someone is using a front end focused service like squarespace, or a more customizable format like neocities, I think anything that fights back against the corpratization of the web is a good thing. (though one could argue that squarespace is also just a corporation, but you get my point) I think it's important for people to have a place to express themselves and make the space their own, even and especially online. With the censoring on all social media, that is literally changing people's speech patterns, I think it's important to maintain spaces where people don't have to self censor, where people are allowed to talk about real world topics like sex, drug use, and death. Just because a corporation isn't comfortable "associating their brand" with certain topics, by advertising on sites where those topics are allowed, doesn't mean those topics should be banned from conversation. I mean, the companies we work for are already getting more and more controlling about what you can and can't do, including singing to music and yawning, my job has even started tracking volunteer's locations. With all this I think it's more important than ever to push back, even if it's just in a small way.
What does any of this have to do with mobile compatibility? I'm glad you asked. When looking at other people's sites one thing I see on pretty much every other site is something along the lines of "this site is not mobile compatible, just use a computer." Now, from my introduction, can you guess where my issue with this sentiment might be? Now, as I said before, I think it's important for people to have their own places online where they're free to express themselves however they want, and that includes not having a mobile compatible site. That being said, I do think it is incredibly classist to tell people to "just use a computer," especially when it's rather easy to include mobile support for most, if not all sites, even if it is a bit of extra work. Yeah, you might have a bit of a learning curve, but if you already know HTML and CSS I doubt it will be that difficult for you, you learned it once, you can learn it again. This site was my first attempt at learning any kind of coding language, and it has had full mobile support since the beginning, I promise you it's doable.
I want to end this by saying, I'm sure I haven't changed your mind, I don't expect to, and if you don't want your site to have mobile support you don't have to, it's your right to curate your space how you want it. But if the goal of your site is to be a resource, maybe just consider trying to add mobile support, maybe?
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