Honestly, most people whose hearing losses are mild enough that vanity outweighs sheer need in their decision making have hearing losses that can be helped with a hearing aid that fits completely within the ear canal. These are effectively invisible (it takes a trained eye to spot them), even many hearing aids that fit behind the ear are now small enough with a thin enough wire leading into the ear canal that they are quite often simply missed by most people.

The real issue is cost. The cost issue persists despite of attempts to address cost concerns by granting people 30-day trials with full refunds if they decide to return the hearing aids, i.e. decide that the cost is not worth it. Convincing people to drop four figures on something that, by virtue of making the free and independent decision to purchase it, labels them as somebody with a disability is a hard sell. Able-bodied people don't want to give themselves the "disability" label. That's true regardless of how stylish the hearing aid is.

The situation won't change until there is greater media representation of people open with their hearing loss, living full and capable lives, to change the perception of a hearing aid to be less like a walking cane and more like vision glasses.