Why haven’t pinhole glasses become more popular before now?
Flimsy appearance and unattractive styling of pinhole glasses. Up to 1999 nearly all pinhole glasses were produced by factories in mainland China. Designers cared only about functionality at a low cost and gave no thought to styling. The result was that pinhole glasses looked like the kind of free plastic toy one might find in a cereal box. No one took them seriously and it was easy for optical industry personnel to call them ‘gimmicks’. Unscrupulous marketing practices by vendors hoping to cash in on what they saw as a miraculous breakthrough in vision correction. Described as a ‘scientific breakthrough’ by scientists and vision care specialists alike when they first came out in 1934, fortune seekers in the U.S. hoping to capitalize on the invention used whatever means necessary to make a sale. They promised immediate return to normal vision after only a short time of use. Most claims could not be substantiated and resulted in those operations being closed down by the U.S Food and Dru
