Why Is Accessibility So Important (To Me)?

[espmartin]

The first step in accessifying a websites is to validate the (X)HTML markup.
Then it goes on from there by using semantics as a foundation. But why is
all that so important (to me)?

You see, the greatest part of the internet that I can see is that it makes
us all equal. Black/white, disabled/non-disabled, etc..., TCP/IP (the protocol)
doesn't care about all that. And websites shouldn't care either.

[xhan]

Thats very true but getting people to do that is another matter. I've spoken to people (designers! albeit new ones) who didn't even know a blind person could browse the internet!