What would air defence against a swarm of a few 1000 UAV look like? Because China...
In order to have a useful X,000miles range and useful payload you need to build fairly large drones which means a large target. If their cheap that directly translates into low speeds making them a very easy target for anti air guns, or low cost anti aircraft missiles.
If you want a large fast drone, that’s getting expensive. To the point where having or not having a pilot makes minimal cost differences.
Note, this assumes it’s part of a modern war with extreme radio jamming etc.