Nice article, Alex. I read this in your email and hoped you’d post it here!
Disastrous laser software aside, it’s worth mentioning the effects of poor programming that leads to inaccessible sites, too. An inaccessible site might not kill someone physically, but it can kill people psychologically, so to speak. (It’s painful to watch videos of people using various assistive technologies having to deal with inaccessible sites.)
There are lots of sites out there that are effectively pyramids with no entrances for some people. Either that, or there is a long stairway up to the door. An accessibility advocate (who sadly died recently) famously quipped—
I’ve been an atheist for a long time—ever since I first heard that there was only a stairway to heaven.