For disabled people who can use their arms and propel themselves, a wheelchair is low-maintenance, dependable, repairable, self-powered, and generic enough for there to be a healthy market and not too much vendor lock-in. Wheelchairs are not necessarily low-tech, but they are fully understandable. If the user of a wheelchair is unable to move themself for whatever reason, any able bodied person can step in and push. These things matter in any situation I think, but they matter even more in an emergency or a war zone.

Exoskeletons can't match that.

Much like wheelchairs vs exo skeletons, the simpler (and cheaper) tech tends to win. I'd imagine in a future where robots are everywhere, they'll use whatever cheap locomotion is appropriate for their tasks, probably predominantly wheels. It's a fun vision to imagine bipedal robots everywhere like in old sci movies, but I'm not convinced that's how it'll play out, the economics don't make that much sense.

Bipedal robots are more expensive to develop, build and maintain, more limited in their payloads, and because of the additional complexity, less reliable.

> If we applied the same logic, there should be a massive effort to ditch wheelchairs and build exoskeletons instead.

Knowing the kind of markup on wheelchairs that means a YouTuber wheel chair look like a bargain (see Jerry rig everything wheelchair), I can't imagine how much the US healthcare "industry" would charge for a "medical grade" exoskeleton.

There just aren't that many people in wheelchairs. There's not a lot of TAM in trying to build a better wheelchair that involves a huge capex.

So instead the government gets involved and demands a change to built environment instead of a speculative bet on the idea of a new technology.

I hear you, I think there's some obvious points you've already considered on price and serviceability. But maybe we do see that coming soon? Exoskeletons currently require some mobility from the legs from the user in the products available today, but as automatic bipedal motion gets more reliable maybe that changes.

I have seen how robots currently behave when they lose their footing though, and I'd be bloody terrified to be strapped into one.

Maybe wheelchair users and robot manufacturers can share a force for getting wheeled locomotion into more spaces, but I think homes will always be a challenge as stairs are a requirement for denser living, and elevators are expensive.