> For better or worse, because there's a lot of irresponsible drone flyers as a result too
The industry is doing a horrible job of educating people and, as a result, they are ruining it for everyone else. I have been flying all manner of radio control craft for over thirty years (planes, helicopters, drones and "things"). As a simple example, I would never --ever-- fly anything over people, homes, roads or high fire risk brush areas. I have crashed enough time to understand that that these things are toys that are not designed to the standards of real aircraft, often suffering from multiple single-point failure risks that could bring them down and either hurt someone or cause serious damage to property.
Our neighborhood FB group is, at times (usually around Xmas and people's birthdays) filled with videos from people flying their new drones over roads (as in, directly over cars), over homes, over bone-dry brush surrounding our neighborhoods, over people (crowds, kids, at parks, without anyone knowing), etc.
The other kind of post is "I flew my drone for the first time in front of my house and I lost it". Which, of course, makes me crying at multiple levels. The crash could easily cause a brush fire that could take out an entire neighborhood [0], and, of course, hurt or kill someone [1].
At first I tried to educate people as to the realities of these devices. I own RC helicopters that cost well in excess of $3,000 and I still consider them unsafe toys. Yet people get offended and verbally abusive when you explain that their $300 drone, despite the hype, is a toy that could fall out of the sky at any time and potentially cause great harm. I mean, I have worked on the design of space capsules that are docked at the International Space Station and people are arguing with me about their toys actually being "reliable". Jeez.
It's only a matter of time until a tragedy occurs. Thankfully the large fires caused by drone crashes have, so far, been limited to open areas. One day someone is going to crash a drone into the bushes in a neighborhood, the LiPo is going to rupture and half the neighborhood will burn down. Sadly people seem to value their fun far more than the safety of others.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/drone-crashes-in...
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/27/14755116/jail-sentence-dr...