Apple's AirPods Pro hearing health features

> Transparency mode in many of today’s earbuds sounds totally natural and lifelike, yet I still constantly remove my buds to show someone they’ve got my undivided attention. That way of thinking has to change when popular earbuds start pulling double duty as hearing aids. It’s a powerful way to reduce the stigma that’s all too common with hearing aids, but this shift will take time.

This will never be not true. You're fighting human nature. The vast majority of people don't need hearing aids and those who do you'll likely know they need a hearing aid if you're having regular or more personal conversations.

If you're getting your order taken at Starbucks, you can totally have ears in even today.

When was the last time you heard someone get called “four eyes” for wearing glasses? Mockery used to be common but society can improve and it seems like accepting people with disabilities as fully human has been improving even if we still have room to go.

I have a feeling that mostly went away not because society got any more considerate, but rather because glasses became much more commonplace, due to the explosion in prevalence of nearsightedness.

Isn't the proposed mechanism the same here?

The stigma will/should go away, because more people will keep their earbuds in; because they will use them as hearing aids.

> because they will use them as hearing aids.

But we're saying most people don't require hearing aids and thus will never reach mass market and thus the stigma won't disappear.

Isn’t that approaching the problem from the other direction? Hearing aids have some stigma because they’re not as widely needed as glasses before old age, but that’s not the primary reason why AirPods sell so the numbers are completely different. In my generation most of us have been talking about older Boomers relatives who’ve resisted visible acceptance of aging and pretty much everyone has been optimistic that they’ll use AirPods and wear an Apple Watch because those don’t telegraph “I’m elderly” the way hearing aids or one of those dedicated fall monitors do.