I understand where you are coming from here, but I think it is helpful for people to overtly grasp that there are very different cancers, very different treatments, and indeed very different outcomes.

Without this understanding it becomes a quick jump from "we're spending all this money on cancer" to "we've made no progress"

An example of the nuance plays out in the common cancers (like breast and prostrate). These have between 90 and 100% 5 year survival rates. Others (like the one in this article, pancreatic) have very poor survivability.

As you note, it's very unlikely that we'll "cure cancer". But we already "cure" (for some definition of cure) some cancers. Progress is slow, methodical, and incremental. It can feel like a lost cause when viewed from afar, but up close very real progress is being made. And that's an important message to pass along.

The other part that is simply missing is that cancer, very unfortunately, evolves and mutates. That's how you go from a cancer that responds to treatment to one that is treatment resistant.

Like you said, for a lot of common cancers we have multiple treatments. It's usually not just one magic drug, but rather the doctors working with the most effective treatments down to the least effective treatments.