I believe this is incorrect - your vision just has to be correctable to 20/20 in both eyes: https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/FAA_Order_39... (Also you can't be color blind.)

Still a bit of a risk though - if your vision ever degrades you might be out of work unless you can get transferred to a desk job or something.

I assume plenty of people will be happy to go through LASIK for that

As far as I recall, in the Aviation world, LASIK is still a major gamble. If you're a pilot or ATC and come out of LASIK surgery with any weird surgery-induced vision abnormalities like "halos" or "starbursts", you're out, permanently.

Which is why when I got mine done around 2015, Navy pilots were still required to get PRK. Much more painful and longer recovery, but the risk of defects was lower. I heard they can now get LASIK; presumably advances have been made since then.