[drzaiusapelord]

>It's also less accessible.

For whom? To the blind this would be a godsend. From a practical medical perspective, audio is superior because we have decades of experience with effective ear implants to help the hard of hearing and the deaf, but the visual equivalent still eludes us.

[zeveb]

> To the blind this would be a godsend.

Actually, I'd imagine that a good old-fashioned tty is pretty good for a blind person: it's TUIs and GUIs that get progressively more painful.

Source: am blind without my glasses; can imagine preferring ed to emacs, vim, Atom, SublimeText if I had to use an audio interface.

[jallmann]

> To the blind this would be a godsend

For sure. Different interfaces disadvantage different classes of people. There is no silver bullet; I'm trying to point out that an exclusively audio/voice-driven UI would not be desirable.

> we have decades of experience with effective ear implants

The problem is multi-faceted. Hearing loss, especially from a young age, often leads to difficulty speaking -- it is no use if a voice-driven system can't understand you in the first place.

And while cochlear implant technology has helped a lot of people, it is by no means a cure, and there are many, many others that don't benefit enough from assistive technology to achieve functional equivalence (which is the key phrase when talking about accessibility). I have a cochlear implant and haven't worn it in years, because it really doesn't help.