"But I'm not aware of any platforms that charge extra for their accessibility features. Are there any?"
My point isn't that OverDrive should itemise their pricing, it's that market participants generally only invest money in R&D when it is expected to make them more money. And if customers signal that they value a feature at $0, then that feature is likely to go to the bottom of the list.
If I buy a licence to a platform, that enables me to provide services to my users, then of course I can only use the features that come with that platform. If I want additional features, of course I can ask for them. But the platform provider will prioritise things based on what will make them money (get more new customers, reduce existing customer churn, or increase revenue per customer).
From what you've said, it sounds like OverDrive has no competition, so the impact of accessibility features on customer retention and acquisition is zero.
If so, then OverDrive needs to be incentivised by either:
A) More money from existing libraries (what I asked about above), or
B) Threat of competition, which would affect future customer acquisition+retention (which the SimplyE project you mention may provide).
This has morphed into a big conversation that misses the point: OverDrive claims to care a ton about accessibility and publishes open letters proclaiming this. Then, when customers come to them with accessibility suggestions, they have zero interest in implementing them.
This wasn't based on difficulty of implementation (it was easy), and OverDrive never asked how much it would cost or whether libraries would pay extra to have the feature. They did not care enough to even have a conversation with the librarians about it.
My point isn't that OverDrive should itemise their pricing, it's that market participants generally only invest money in R&D when it is expected to make them more money. And if customers signal that they value a feature at $0, then that feature is likely to go to the bottom of the list.
If I buy a licence to a platform, that enables me to provide services to my users, then of course I can only use the features that come with that platform. If I want additional features, of course I can ask for them. But the platform provider will prioritise things based on what will make them money (get more new customers, reduce existing customer churn, or increase revenue per customer).
From what you've said, it sounds like OverDrive has no competition, so the impact of accessibility features on customer retention and acquisition is zero.
If so, then OverDrive needs to be incentivised by either:
A) More money from existing libraries (what I asked about above), or
B) Threat of competition, which would affect future customer acquisition+retention (which the SimplyE project you mention may provide).