I work in a university research group that builds and flies conservation drones. My supervisor literally wrote the book on the field. Broadly my job is to build

I work in a university research group that builds and flies conservation drones. My supervisor literally wrote the book on the field. Broadly my job is to build egde-based machine learning systems for conservation (ie on the drone). My group has its own research agenda, but we do also provide equipment and fly for other conservation groups globally. It's largely research (ie university) and private-ish conservation groups (eg WWF, ZSL) doing this. Typically we work with a partner in the country that we're operating in. Virtually all this sort of flying requires approval from the local government and aviation authority, so having someone local is vital. Plus you need access to the sorts of locations which you can't really get as an enthusiastic amateur. Conservation is a particularly difficult one to do because often the areas, like the Galápagos, are heavily protected. On the other hand there are places where you can fly with minimal restrictions (eg marine surveys) because there's minimal risk to the public. Conservationists have the best travel perks! These drones are very often custom. Off the shelf devices are too closed or un-modifiable to be useful, but are fine for basic photographic surveys. Stuff breaks and you need to be able to field repair it. As soon as you start needing custom payloads, you need some expertise in drone development. It's cheaper for us to diy than it is to buy off the shelf, but only because we have engineers with experience to do it. We do have a couple of Mavics though, they're just nice pieces of kit. And there are lots of conservation groups who buy off the shelf drones for purely visual surveys. So yes. Lots of regulations (we also have group members who liaise frequently with the CAA). It's increasingly difficult for amateurs or even small businesses to do this stuff. As soon as you want to start fiddling with hardware, you need to treat every drone like a proper aircraft. That means no modifications without signing off, proper operating procedures, pilots with currency requirements and so on. Most of it is legal protection, but it's there for a reason. Once you start thinking about extended or beyond visible line of sight... As you mention, there are people who will fly drones as a service. There are less than there were, since drones are cheap and easy enough to fly that people do it themselves (illegally, usually). This is really limited to surveying and photographic work.