[toby]

Your argument from first-principles makes sense, but I just don't think a lot of us are comfortable living in a world where disabled people have to pay twice as much (or whatever the additional cost would be) for groceries. The fact that there's no movement to repeal the ADA would suggest most people feel that way.

[VBprogrammer]

Honestly, the alternative is just absurd. In this version of reality do employment protections still exist for disabled people or do they all magically earn there living in multilevel marketing from the comfort of their living rooms in their bespoke built homes (because most homes aren't build with accessibility in mind because the free market will fix that...).

[jlokier]

Disability protection law uses the idea of "reasonable accomodation", which mediates between the tensions in this issue.

So disabled people don't get an automatic job, say. But an employer can't just decide not interview someone because "it's inconvenient to interview you due to your disability".

Another: It's not acceptable to say "sorry we can't interview you if you can't climb stairs, because there is a staircase between our interview room and the downstairs offices", because there is a reasonable accomodation possible, namely interviewing in a different room.

A shop is required to make reasonable accomodations, such as provide an entry ramp if that makes sense, and a wheelchair compatible toilet if that makes sense (i.e. it has other toilets).

That prevents shops from saying "we don't care about the 2% so we can't be bothered with a ramp even though the cost is negligable to us".

On the other hand, reasonable is relative. An organisation with no funds would not be required to do the same things as an organisation with plenty of funds. A club open to the public is expected to do more than a private gathering of people where nobody in the group has particular needs. And accomodation doesn't always have to be pre-emptive. For a public facility, anticipating needs of a broad spectrum people is expectecd, but for a small, private workplace it may suffice to react to the particular needs of individual people as needed.

(Note, disability is complicated because there are so many kinds, many of them invisible but cause much difficulty for the persons affected, and people without experience do not recognise the signs. I've used wheelchair here because everyone recognises that, but even with those, a lot of people seem to not understand that if a person can stand up and walk a bit, it doesn't mean they don't need a wheelchair.)