[patio11]

The problem with image buttons like the ones shown are that they visually break when zoomed in

Breaking features that paying users overwhelmingly do not use is not a showstopper for most businesses. I don't actively hate power-users, but if you're savvy enough to do anything other than open up the browser in the default settings and make with the clicky-clicky, you're savvy enough to undo it when you run into problems.

See also: "I disabled Javascript and your website broke", "I disable first-party cookies by default and your website broke", "I couldn't get your website to work on my wife's computer which I set up to run Lynx on Ubuntu Dapper" (no, really), etc.

I feel a lot worse over the related answer for disabled users, since they typically don't have an option to turn off being disabled, but the economics are the same: 100% higher development costs to improve the experience of under 1% of users is not feasible.

[sedev]

I'm one of the people perennially angry over 'I disabled JavaScript and your website broke,' but that's limited to sites that should work fine with JS off. Like this guy's - it's a blog post. A blog post should not completely break with JS off.

What I think isn't that 'the site breaks with JS off' is inherently terrible. Some sites actually do require JS - but that's far fewer than the number that think that they require JS, and completely breaking with JS off is a very distinct code smell. It says 'this person does not sweat the details.'

[joahua]

RE: disability, the economics are a little different, insofar as if you're a big enough target [1] it can be considered discrimination in a bunch of places.

Also, angry geeks aren't your decision-making customers/normal users, so you're not [as likely to be] foregoing revenue with them as you are with disabled users.

I don't mean this to come off as a holier-than-thou accessibility rant, but just thought the two situations were different enough to note.

1. http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1159347929235 (pun possibly intended)

[Poiesis]

That economic argument against paying to help the disabled access services is the reason why the ADA was passed.

It's a tough decision where to draw the line. A purely economic decision seems soulless; accommodation of everyone will bankrupt you.