The reason hiking shoes have ankle support is because most people already have glass ankles. If you let your ankles strengthen without them then rolling your ankles doesn’t equal injury. I went on a long hike just last weekend and rolled my ankles pretty hard on two occations without any pain or injury.
Also lots of “activity” shoes don’t have ankle support. See: most basketball shoes, trail/ultra running shoes, football cleats. All shoes that are pretty optimized for performance in sports that have high ankle impact, most are low top.
The reason hiking shoes have ankle support is because most people already have glass ankles. If you let your ankles strengthen without them then rolling your ankles doesn’t equal injury. I went on a long hike just last weekend and rolled my ankles pretty hard on two occations without any pain or injury.
Also lots of “activity” shoes don’t have ankle support. See: most basketball shoes, trail/ultra running shoes, football cleats. All shoes that are pretty optimized for performance in sports that have high ankle impact, most are low top.