I imagine new medical tech is usually covered by insurance, which makes it possible for people to afford it initially (and even later, when the device is more at scale), but I expect it's really hard to get insurance companies (in the US at least) to consider covering new things, especially when there is a cheaper alternative.

I imagine an insurance company is heartless enough to believe that a much cheaper wheelchair is "good enough" and there's "no reason" to pay the hefty costs for an experimental exoskeleton.