Because the dollar store readers are not made to correct hyperopia (“farsightedness”);

they are made to correct presbyopia (the loss of focusing flexibility that hits all of us in our
early 40s). Presbyopia occurs in all of us in a relatively equal way, so making a
standardized power for presbyopia is easy.

With this conventional approach, information you give the eye doctor is very subjective, based more on what

you think you see instead of what you actually see. But a wavefront measurement is objective, because

vision errors can be identified automatically by the way light waves travel through the eye.

Someday, these detailed wavefront measurements may replace conventional eyeglass or contact lens

prescriptions, which describe vision problems only in terms of the eye's nearsightedness, farsightedness and

astigmatism.

Just as custom (or "wavefront-guided") LASIK has the potential for producing sharper vision than

conventional LASIK, glasses and contact lenses made with this advanced technology may also produce better

visual clarity than their conventional counterparts.

So, most of the answers are correct in a way. i.e. you can't buy farsighted glasses reliably off a shelf

for various reasons.

But, the reason your glasses cost $300 is a completely different story. The majority of the market is

dominated by one manufacturer, which also owns a majority of the retail outlets, which also (90% chance)

runs your vision insurance. So, they making the glasses, in some cases the lenses, administering your

insurance, and own a lot of the retail places where you're buying glasses at. Essentially, at any point you

enter the product world of glasses you're getting screwed by a huge monopoly. The other piece of this is a

lot of these retail centers the people there actually earn commissions. Those lens upgrades, how many

different companies produce anti glare? Scratch resistance? They're selling you options that you can't really

see and unless you need transition lenses don't really need. I recently had lasik surgery but before that I

would order frames/lenses with no coatings and not have issues ($17 dollars was what i paid after my last

exam & pair of glasses). There are also online manufacturers like Zenni optical where as long as you have an

up to date script you can get a pair of glasses shipped to you for 30-40 bucks.

Their brands include (I"m talking about luxottica here)

Eyemed (insurance, and often where other insurance companies are getting their administration through).

Okley, sunglass hut, lens crafters, person, oliver peoples, pearle vision, target optical, ray ban, eye care plan

of america, glasses.com.

They merged with a large lens manufacturer in 2017:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/business/dealbook/luxottica-essilor-merger.html

More reading if you're interested:

https://theweek.com/articles/784436/secretive-megacompanies-behind-glasses

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anaswanson/2014/09/10/meet-the-four-eyed-eight-tentacled-monopoly-that-

is-making-your-glasses-so-expensive/#89a54256b66b

John Oliver also mentions them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4
With this conventional approach, information you give the eye doctor is very subjective, based more on what

you think you see instead of what you actually see. But a wavefront measurement is objective, because

vision errors can be identified automatically by the way light waves travel through the eye.

Someday, these detailed wavefront measurements may replace conventional eyeglass or contact lens

prescriptions, which describe vision problems only in terms of the eye's nearsightedness, farsightedness and

astigmatism.

No, I don't think any telescope could come close.

For instance, Hubble has an angular resolution of about 1/10 of an arcsecond. It is approximately 384,000km

from the moon. 1/10 arcsecond is 1/36000 of a degree, and a circle is 360 degrees.

1/10 arcsecond on a circle with radius 384000 km is:

2 * 384000 * pi / 360 / 36000 = 0.18617

Basically, the cheater readers are making the assumption that the wearer has perfect
distance vision, and simply brings the focal point forward to a comfortable reading
distance.

Now, plus power lenses that correct for presbyopia also happen to help with hyperopia.
However, unless your hyperopia just coincidentally happens to be equal between your
eyes, free of astigmatism, and of a small enough amount, the readers are only partially
correcting it. It may be better than nothing, or even good enough for practical use in many
cases, but they do not usually fully or adequately correct the hyperope’s vision.

As far as myopia (“nearsightedness”) goes, its generally too unique to the individual to
standardize in a “drug store reader” kind of way. Plus if people are self-
diagnosing/correcting myopia, they almost always tend to overcorrect it, making them
prone to eyestrain, headaches, and if they are young enough, a worsening of their
prescription. In fact a huge part of the refraction procedure (“one or two?”) is making sure
the patient hasn’t overcorrected themselves.

Every person has a certain range of distance where they can see things sharp. For
someone with "perfect" eyes the furthest point is infinity. Their eyer are relaxed, and they
focus stuff far away perfectly. The closest point they can see sharp (when they strain their
eyes really hard and "squish" the lens) is around 15 cm from their eyes, but it gets further
away with age. This is by the way why old people are far sighted.

So what do glasses do? In their simplest case, they just shift those points. But of course
they shift both points! So they pull them closer to you, or push them further away.

Now what about farsightedness and nearsightedness? You can imagine those conditions as
shifting of the two points described before. One or both points can be shifted. Let's look at
common possibilities:

- If you are a "normal" old person, your closest point just got further away. This means
your range is smaller, but you still recognize faces at the distance. When you want to read
something, you need to move your close point closer to your eyes, so that your reading
material is in your focal range. But since you will not be able to see things far away with
glasses anyway (your far point also moved away from infinity, and is now somewhere
around a couple meters away from your eyes) it doesnt really matter how far you shift.

- If you are a "normal" nearsighted person, then typically your lense is squished, so that
both your points are closer to your eyes. What you want to do with glasses, is to put your
far point at EXACTLY infinity. This way you can relax your eyes, and see stuff far away. If
you move it "beyond infinity", then your eye has to work all the time while you are walking
about in your glasses and focus stuff. This will give you a headache.

- (The farsightedness where the lense is deformed can also happen. Then your far point is
beyond infinity. It is really hard to notice though, because your eyes can just focus. Its
just they are never relaxed. So people only get their eyes checked after headaches at
school or something. Those people also need expensive glasses.)
A friend got lasik and the doc used something that basically did all the 1 or 2 stuff automatically, and

apparently you can get the same without lasik by getting an exam for high definition lenses. I'm pretty sure

this Wavefront thing is it: https://www.allaboutvision.com/eye-exam/wavefront.htm

Wavefront technology developed for custom LASIK may soon be used routinely by eye doctors to better

diagnose vision problems in eye exams, perhaps making the familiar eye chart obsolete.

Most people have had eye exams with a device called a phoropter, which contains many lenses of different

powers. An ophthalmologist or optometrist changes the lenses in front of your eyes, asking which lens

produces the best image.

Every person has a certain range of distance where they can see things sharp. For
someone with "perfect" eyes the furthest point is infinity. Their eyer are relaxed, and they
focus stuff far away perfectly. The closest point they can see sharp (when they strain their
eyes really hard and "squish" the lens) is around 15 cm from their eyes, but it gets further
away with age. This is by the way why old people are far sighted.

So what do glasses do? In their simplest case, they just shift those points. But of course
they shift both points! So they pull them closer to you, or push them further away.

Now what about farsightedness and nearsightedness? You can imagine those conditions as
shifting of the two points described before. One or both points can be shifted. Let's look at
common possibilities:

- If you are a "normal" old person, your closest point just got further away. This means
your range is smaller, but you still recognize faces at the distance. When you want to read
something, you need to move your close point closer to your eyes, so that your reading
material is in your focal range. But since you will not be able to see things far away with
glasses anyway (your far point also moved away from infinity, and is now somewhere
around a couple meters away from your eyes) it doesnt really matter how far you shift.

- If you are a "normal" nearsighted person, then typically your lense is squished, so that
both your points are closer to your eyes. What you want to do with glasses, is to put your
far point at EXACTLY infinity. This way you can relax your eyes, and see stuff far away. If
you move it "beyond infinity", then your eye has to work all the time while you are walking
about in your glasses and focus stuff. This will give you a headache.
- (The farsightedness where the lense is deformed can also happen. Then your far point is
beyond infinity. It is really hard to notice though, because your eyes can just focus. Its
just they are never relaxed. So people only get their eyes checked after headaches at
school or something. Those people also need expensive glasses.)

With this conventional approach, information you give the eye doctor is very subjective, based more on what

you think you see instead of what you actually see. But a wavefront measurement is objective, because

vision errors can be identified automatically by the way light waves travel through the eye.

Someday, these detailed wavefront measurements may replace conventional eyeglass or contact lens

prescriptions, which describe vision problems only in terms of the eye's nearsightedness, farsightedness and

astigmatism.

Just as custom (or "wavefront-guided") LASIK has the potential for producing sharper vision than

conventional LASIK, glasses and contact lenses made with this advanced technology may also produce better

visual clarity than their conventional counterparts.

So, most of the answers are correct in a way. i.e. you can't buy farsighted glasses reliably off a shelf

for various reasons.

But, the reason your glasses cost $300 is a completely different story. The majority of the market is

dominated by one manufacturer, which also owns a majority of the retail outlets, which also (90% chance)

runs your vision insurance. So, they making the glasses, in some cases the lenses, administering your

insurance, and own a lot of the retail places where you're buying glasses at. Essentially, at any point you

enter the product world of glasses you're getting screwed by a huge monopoly. The other piece of this is a

lot of these retail centers the people there actually earn commissions. Those lens upgrades, how many

different companies produce anti glare? Scratch resistance? They're selling you options that you can't really

see and unless you need transition lenses don't really need. I recently had lasik surgery but before that I

would order frames/lenses with no coatings and not have issues ($17 dollars was what i paid after my last

exam & pair of glasses). There are also online manufacturers like Zenni optical where as long as you have an

up to date script you can get a pair of glasses shipped to you for 30-40 bucks.

Their brands include (I"m talking about luxottica here)

Eyemed (insurance, and often where other insurance companies are getting their administration through).

Okley, sunglass hut, lens crafters, person, oliver peoples, pearle vision, target optical, ray ban, eye care plan

of america, glasses.com.

They merged with a large lens manufacturer in 2017:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/business/dealbook/luxottica-essilor-merger.html

More reading if you're interested:

https://theweek.com/articles/784436/secretive-megacompanies-behind-glasses

https://www.forbes.com/sites/anaswanson/2014/09/10/meet-the-four-eyed-eight-tentacled-monopoly-that-

is-making-your-glasses-so-expensive/#89a54256b66b

John Oliver also mentions them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00wQYmvfhn4
With this conventional approach, information you give the eye doctor is very subjective, based more on what

you think you see instead of what you actually see. But a wavefront measurement is objective, because

vision errors can be identified automatically by the way light waves travel through the eye.

Someday, these detailed wavefront measurements may replace conventional eyeglass or contact lens

prescriptions, which describe vision problems only in terms of the eye's nearsightedness, farsightedness and

astigmatism.

No, I don't think any telescope could come close.

For instance, Hubble has an angular resolution of about 1/10 of an arcsecond. It is approximately 384,000km

from the moon. 1/10 arcsecond is 1/36000 of a degree, and a circle is 360 degrees.

1/10 arcsecond on a circle with radius 384000 km is:

2 * 384000 * pi / 360 / 36000 = 0.18617

So the resolution of Hubble would be 186m, much too large to make out a single human. To achieve the sub-

1m resolution needed to discern a person on the moon, a telescope would need a resolution over 100 times

better, which does not exist.

Every person has a certain range of distance where they can see things sharp. For someone with "perfect"

eyes the furthest point is infinity. Their eyer are relaxed, and they focus stuff far away perfectly. The closest

point they can see sharp (when they strain their eyes really hard and "squish" the lens) is around 15 cm

from their eyes, but it gets further away with age. This is by the way why old people are far sighted.

So what do glasses do? In their simplest case, they just shift those points. But of course they shift both

points! So they pull them closer to you, or push them further away.

Now what about farsightedness and nearsightedness? You can imagine those conditions as shifting of the two

points described before. One or both points can be shifted. Let's look at common possibilities:

- If you are a "normal" old person, your closest point just got further away. This means your range is

smaller, but you still recognize faces at the distance. When you want to read something, you need to move

your close point closer to your eyes, so that your reading material is in your focal range. But since you will

not be able to see things far away with glasses anyway (your far point also moved away from infinity, and is

now somewhere around a couple meters away from your eyes) it doesnt really matter how far you shift.

- If you are a "normal" nearsighted person, then typically your lense is squished, so that both your points are

closer to your eyes. What you want to do with glasses, is to put your far point at EXACTLY infinity. This way

you can relax your eyes, and see stuff far away. If you move it "beyond infinity", then your eye has to work

all the time while you are walking about in your glasses and focus stuff. This will give you a headache.

- (The farsightedness where the lense is deformed can also happen. Then your far point is beyond infinity. It

is really hard to notice though, because your eyes can just focus. Its just they are never relaxed. So people

only get their eyes checked after headaches at school or something. Those people also need expensive

glasses.)