Well I think it's pretty common for people with nearsightedness to be able to read without correction for many years. I've been using reading glasses with my contacts for I think 12 years now, but when I'm home with my contacts out, it's only recently that I sometimes (not usually) need a little bit of "help" to read. If the type isn't super small and there's a reasonable amount of light, I don't need any. DH wears glasses for distance vision and same for him, his close vision is fine without any correction at all. If they were to make progressive lenses (or regular bifocals) for people like him or your friends, the bottom tier would be plain glass (no correction) anyway. So why pay extra for it?