If it seems like an absurd take, please at least consider that perhaps I'm not the one who's missing something, that perhaps I have decades of experience following the research and its results. I understand it's a bad look to shit on what should be a positive story: technology fixes disabled man, news at 11. But these types of treatments have been around for at least 25 years and always end up the same - a big hype cycle, some funding grants for the researchers, a few grads get their Phd's, then everyone realizes it doesn't actually work, the effects were mostly placebo or attributed to other factors (such as the surgical installation of the implant alleviating undiagnosed pressure on the nerves), then it goes quiet for a couple years until people forget and the cycle repeats.

People who don't actually live with or understand spinal cord injury often fall into the trap of thinking that "if we can just make their legs move, then they're fixed!" Completely ignoring that somatosensation (sensory feedback) is probably 2/3 or more of the signal and implants can't communicate that at all. It's difficult for many able-bodied people to understand that spinal cord injuries are not the same as needing glasses (to address another comment). Not the same ballpark, not even the same sport.

One must ask the question of what the goal of the research is? Is the goal to restore spinal cord function or is the goal to advance BMI technology? When your funding source and research institution are committed to a particular path, the "goal" starts to take whatever shape is necessary to align with the former two.

I suppose it's only fair for me to consider that perhaps the goal is better BMI's instead of restoring spinal cord function. To which I would have to applaud the effort. However, I have it on good authority that given the option, those suffering from spinal cord injuries would rather see more research going toward solving the problem and not the symptom.