alt Hacker NewsAccessibility is more than just screen readers. Toasts are also not accessible for folks with low vision, low peripheral vision, etc. And the time-based disappearance is unpleasant for many people, as one of many examples of "accessibility improvements are also often usability improvements".
A message that you have to explicitly dismiss, and that's stored in a "message history" somewhere, is much more accessible and usable.
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That depends on the size of the toast, appearance and frequency. We (an MSP) used a Windows toast notification[1] to encourage people initiate the Win10 > Win11 upgrade at their own convenient time (before it gets forced down on them) - and we got a pretty high uptake. The overall feedback from both the project team and users were good: the toast was unmissable, the text explanation was clear, and the big banner image was eye catching.
They also often show up in bad locations, requiring you to dismiss them explicitly so you can continue using other UI elements.
Okay you are right, timer-adjustable disappearance and history is important too and if it's local to where user's fields of view it's better than a toast every time of the day.
Accessibility doesn't even need to be related to any disability or unusual user requirement. A user-hostile website can be inaccessible even to users with perfect visual and motor functions.
> Toasts are also not accessible for folks with low vision
To make this a little more concrete with one example: if you are using fullscreen magnification, odds are toasts will literally never appear on your monitor. By the time you pan over to their little corner of the screen (if you ever do), the toast will be long gone.