Clay Spinuzzi posted a review of Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone by John M. Slatin and Sharron Rush and highlights this important point in the book:

More than offering an understanding of accessibility challenges, more than offering how-tos, the book makes a compelling argument that accessibility is a civil rights issue and that we must attend to it morally and ethically, not just in terms of regulations (although regulations are also a concern). Just as we provide curb cuts and ramps in our buildings, we should provide accessibility measures on our websites. And, the authors are quick to point out, such measures benefit everyone: just as curb cuts serve anyone who has to use a wheeled device (from wheelchairs to hand trucks), accessible sites serve anyone who has to use a website (from those with screen readers to those using text-only browsers to those using handheld devices and news aggregators).

A major step backward, indeed.

CultureCat

Go take a quick look at the opinion. It'll soon become apparent that the real issue here is that the lawyers for Access Now changed their strategy, and the court found that made the appeal irrelevant.

However, we are unable to reach the merits of the plaintiffs' claim
because, simply put, they have presented this Court with a case that
is wholly different from the one they brought to the district court.
As we see it, the plaintiffs have abandoned the claim and argument
they made before the district court, and in its place raised an
entirely new theory on appeal -- one never presented to or considered
by the trial court.

Our problem on appeal is that the new argument depends on critical
facts (and a new theory) neither alleged in the complaint nor
otherwise presented to the district court.

We also observe that the plaintiffs had every opportunity to raise the
new theory in district court, whether in their initial complaint or in
an effort to amend their complaint. As best we can tell, at no time
did the plaintiffs do so.

In declining to evaluate the merits of this case, we are in no way
unmindful that the legal questions raised are significant. The
Internet is transforming our economy and culture, and the question
whether it is covered by the ADA -- one of the landmark civil rights
laws in this country -- is of substantial public importance. Title
III's applicability to web sites -- either because web sites are
themselves places of public accommodation or because they have a
sufficient nexus to such physical places of public accommodation -- is
a matter of first impression before this Court. Unfortunately, this
case does not provide the proper vehicle for answering these
questions. Thus, as we see it, there are no substantive questions
properly before us.

IANAL, but I translate this as, "Access Now's lawyers screwed up."