I’m sorry you feel that way. The fact that most sites are utterly broken from a keyboard accessibility standpoint should not be a reason to give up, and not do everything we can to make the sites more usable to those who can’t or aren’t comfortable using a mouse… There are plenty of sites out there that are atrociously bad when it comes to keyboard navigation, but there are a lot of sites out there that are offering a very decent, and some, even great keyboard navigation experience. Examples of major sites in different verticals that come to mind include, but are not limited to:

• Banking: PNC Bank
• Insurance: StateFarm
• Retail: REI
• Social: YouTube
• Travel: American Airlines

This is a question of mindset. It can be done, it’s really not that complicated, and the web is full of articles about the topic. This should really be a core requirement for front-end developers.

Any organization that would guesstimate the cost of improving keyboard navigation as millions of dollars would be much better off firing their scoping team and hiring competent people to offer a much more realistic portrait of the situation. Such people are probably already costing them millions in clueless, uninformed decisions. ;)