droneflyers.com
First Officer
Flight distance : 60709 ft
United States
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It's all guesswork, but I think liability is a BIG deal here. This includes both warranty liability as well as responsibility for tools they put into the hands of untrained consumers.
There is a calculation here:
How many people won't buy it because it doesn't have waypoints - or, more accurately, won't accept waypoints from 3rd parties later?
VS.
How many extra warranty and replacement claims and unhappy customers come from crashes and loss when using waypoints (it requires learning and skill to know mapping, etc)?
and
What are the legal ramifications - you could, for example, put bad stuff on a quadcopter and make it fly into a crowd, etc. when you were not there, etc. etc.???
and
What is our responsibility as the largest (by far) member of the drone coalitions and lobbying groups?
As as example, look at the Solo claims of "Selfie shots" - lawyers are probably raising a toast to that one! A flying blender without a zoom camera with factory-approved automated moves to get very close to people!
I know it's easy to think that corporations don't have souls or standards....but the combination of legalities combined with their own self-interest can often steer their direction.
As consumers we want a lot of things. But we really don't know - en masse - what is safe. Witness the crazy things people are doing with these. Waypoints would mean people doing circuits of the NYC skyline, checking out the local air force base and looking hard for Area 52 :-)
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