This week, VRChat rolled out changes limiting maximum download and uncompressed avatar sizes.

This has been… Controversial.

https://x.com/LiindyVR/status/1773342271846363366?s=20

https://x.com/kentrl_z/status/1773454369867878438?s=20

The discourse has been endless, I just like these examples.

Now, all of my friends know firmly where I stand on this. From incessant nagging about the application of content warnings to impromptu voice-call workshops on Easy VRAM management, all the way to pulling teeth to get people to upload quest-compatible avatars and setting palatable fallbacks… I will never shut up about VRChat accessibility.

One thing I’ve noticed, being this insufferable, is that people don’t intrinsically want to make accessible content. The default will always be to take the past of least resistance- and if other people can’t see their avatars, have their PCs nuked by glorious 4k textures, or are exposed to obscene content, well… “Get a PC! Get a better PC! Kids shouldn’t be on the internet, anyway! Not my responsibility!”

And well… That’s depressing! What a horrid thought! But it got me thinking, how do people make anything accessible, if people don’t want to do that? In real life, we have disabled people, right? Or colorblind people, or- hell- impoverished people without the ability to dunk funds on all the niceties of boogie living, trapped in a cycle of poor mens’ shoes.

Well, I guess they did the same thing VRChat’s doing. That is to say: Forcing people. Get accessible or get #&$*’d In my home country, for example, it was through the Americans with Disabilities Act. Why’d that pass? I’m no political scholar, and I can’t speculate. But now, I’m really desperate to know how they did it.