HTML Unleashed PRE. Creating Widely Accessible Web Pages: A Final Remark

relatively popular accessibility solution that I haven't mentioned so far in this chapter is a text-only version of an entire page or site, linked somewhere near the top of the "real" page as an emergency exit for those who cannot bear anything more complicated than HTML 2.0.

It's not an omission; frankly, I left out this possibility rather consciously.  As you can conclude from this long and diversified chapter, there are precious few situations that pose really tough accessibility challenges.  After all, from its very beginning HTML was intended to be an accessible, portable, and easily transformable medium, and no amount of "extensions" can rob it of this essential characteristic.

In the great majority of cases, inaccessible web pages are a result not of the technologies applied, but rather of their incorrect implementation and lack of proper care.  Setting up a text-only version is not only inefficient and prone to errors and desynchronization; it is, after all, a surrender, a capitulation, a betrayal of the very nature of HTML.  On the contrary, sensible and accessible use of the entire inventory of HTML tools is a boon for site maintainers, users, and, as a final result, for the language itself.