There are forms of technology other than software, and wheelchairs are one of them. YCombinator has invested in dozens of medical device startups... including devices in the mobility category: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/trexo-robotics

You expect too much of people.

Please stop. These cynical drive-by comments add nothing to the discussion.

I get it but the acting surprised feels condescending and annoying itself. Maybe I should have articulated that better. There are always ignorant people. Always. Take that opportunity to answer their questions and move on. Not this "I know right. gawd. youd think theyd know better..." come on man, that's just rude. Like of course, there are gonna be questions and confused people. Don't be condescending and act all surprised.

The hope is that it is a site full of thoughtful people who’ve done at least a couple difficult projects. For that sort of person, the first instinct should not be to try and invalidate a project based on a couple seconds of googling. We should know that sometimes the problem takes more than a couple seconds of research to get to the real problem statement.

It's not but the concept that there may be more than one sub-type of a product (here: manual wheelchairs and their subtypes: "medical" [0], transport, etc) because there are many different scenarios for using any product is a universally applicable idea. You don't have to know much to see the cheaper types, see that they're physically different and figure out that there's a reason for there to be different types.

It's an endemic problem in many fields but you see it a lot with programmers. It's the same class of cognitive bias that births ideas like "the law should be like a program, that would be much simpler" that were (still are?) big in tech circles. Lazy pattern matching and thinking that understanding one complex thing (programming) makes one automatically better at unrelated fields (complex manufacturing).

[0] The type most people are most familiar with, large wheels, collapsible, handles for assistance from others. Generally not used by people who are able to move under their own power.

[1] similar to "medical" but without the large back wheels so they're only mobile with another persons help or by scooting around using your feet.