[themoonisachees]

Braille screens are prohibitively expensive. Most blind people on the internet either have enough sight to navigate a heavily vision-optimized interface (high-contrast, large text) or use a screen reader, or both.

As far as input goes, braille keyboards are more affordable, but many users can touch-type (and have their screen reader read back). Dictation is also a mature option at this point.

Blind people need 3rd-party apps because these apps can be more compatible with screen readers, or can be themed in an easier way allowing for blind-friendly presets. In general, official apps tend to be heavily obfuscated to prevent automated scraping and puppeting. Since blind users often need to basically puppet their devices by not using common interfaces, this puts them at odds with corporations who do not care about them and would ban them if allowed. The alternative is of course not to use big tech products but just because you have a disability shouldn't mean you are abandoning at least half the current web.

[contingencies]

Understood. What do you feel the tipping point would be on price and features for an open source braille display? In particular, what is the required number of rows / columns for English to make it very useful?