Even if that happened it would be years before people upgraded. People using assistive technology tend to be more resistant to changing their setup than one would expect as it can be difficult to debug failed upgrades. It can also be extremely expensive, for example the leading Windows screenreader JAWS costs $900 per install.
And, like the article says, even leaving aside screenreader users this has a practical benefit for many users. If your prose is complex enough that you have to use a Latin abbreviation for precision you’re probably in need of a content designer to simplify it.
> I suspect most screenreaders would simply say "Eff Eff Ess".
Correct, thankfully. I don't really see a use case for screen reader-specific usage of the abr tag. If everybody else has to read "FFS", possibly having to look it up on Google to know what on earth it is, why wouldn't I also? Although I suspect that as a sighted user, you can mouse-over some text marked up with abr and see the expanded form.
This would be my concern -- potentially half-assed engineered products significantly influencing nationwide (worldwide?) standards that suddenly many developers must now accompany. It'll be like supporting IE 7-9 all over again.
And, like the article says, even leaving aside screenreader users this has a practical benefit for many users. If your prose is complex enough that you have to use a Latin abbreviation for precision you’re probably in need of a content designer to simplify it.