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DJI ban passes the House and moves on to the Senate

• dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Is there anything competitive thats even remotely close to DJI?
• sofixa 2y ago
  "free market". Unless there's something better than what our own companies can do (Bombardier C-Series jets, DJI drones, BYD Electric Vehicles), then protectionism. Also, I have to say that I find it very weird that random unrelated legislation can be in the same "act".
  • jarbus 2y ago
    I agree that it’s protectionism, 100%. DJI seems to have been remarkably clean from what I understand with no reason to warrant a ban other than it’s Chinese. That being said, they have an insane lead in the market (rightfully earned). I don’t think US companies could ever hope to seriously compete without some form of unfair advantage, and the US has no reason to not grant it, especially given China’s tactics with EVs
    • jpgvm 2y ago
      The thing about EVs that I don't get with this argument is US auto has been bailed out, subsidized, protected and otherwise coddled for it's entire life. If that doesn't grant it an unfair advantage what will? The reality is that US protectionism has instead created a market where they didn't need to compete. Where they could build ever bigger cars with only Califonia even attempting to try nudge them in the direction of the rest of the world. China showing up and eating their lunch isn't because of subsidies, it's due to gross negligence on the behalf of legacy auto. Has everyone already forgotten the endless hit pieces on Tesla? The almost weekly espousing that "EVs will never work?". I haven't. This was entirely self-inflicted and just like the first round of protectionism that was designed to ward off Japanese auto industry it will probably end the same way.
  • mpalmer 2y ago
    C-Series is "better" in large part because its favorable pricing was heavily subsidized by the Canadian government. And I'm not sure you want to get into a discussion about China and protectionism, to say nothing of national security concerns.
    • sofixa 2y ago
      > C-Series is "better" in large part because its favorable pricing was heavily subsidized by the Canadian government Just like Boeing gets billions in tax breaks, various aids and in theory extremely profitable if they weren't so damn incompetent military contracts? And no, it's better because it's more efficient. Over the lifetime of a plane it's purchase price is a tiny part of the total costs.
      • mpalmer 2y ago
        I think we share the same opinion on Boeing itself. But what is the difference between Boeing's advantage in the US vs Bombardier's in Canada?
        • sofixa 2y ago
          Minimal (outside of the fact that a lot of the money given to Bombardier resulted in equity for Quebec and wasn't just handouts; but in terms of % of the whole program it's a wash). Yet Canada isn't out there banning Boeing planes or asking for 300% tariffs on them for "unfair competition".
  • ganoushoreilly 2y ago
    When companies receive outsized state subsidies that allow them to undercut the markets, it's not an apples for apples comparison. As for the unrelated legislation, I agree. Too many things are tacked on / added on. NO ONE is reading these things in complete given that sometimes they receive the full 1k pages hours before the vote. The other issue is the number of things funded that shouldn't be in general but that's a whole other can of worms. It's become a i'll vote for your thing if you give me this thing, for every single vote and that's toxic and gross.
    • unethical_ban 2y ago
      If the US unfree market for automobiles (hello 2008) can't compete with Chinese state sponsored EVs, should we not do state subsidized EV and battery development here? Isn't electric transport that important? If the problem is privacy, why don't we legislate privacy instead of banning apps and banning items? My conspiracy theory would be that the US government doesn't want the citizen to have effective drones for surveillance and recon in the event of civil conflict. They want a Killswitch. (Totally crackpot but it sounds believable).
      • resoluteteeth 2y ago
        > If the problem is privacy, why don't we legislate privacy instead of banning apps and banning items? Yes exactly. If some companies are doing things that you don't like, like misusing personal information and transferring it to other countries, it is much better to enact general laws that prevent that, as the EU is doing, rather than passing laws that ban individual Chinese companies. It would be as if rather than regulating car safety, we had a situation where lots of cars by both US and foreign automakers had massive safety problems, but rather than fixing that in general, we simply chose to ban specific Chinese car brands on supposed national security grounds while ignoring that cars made by US companies had the exact same problems.
      • jonathankoren 2y ago
        Your questions are right, but the conspiracy theory is dreadfully wrong. If you want a motivating force for banning, but not actually competing by leveling the field, it’s ideology. The US government doesn’t do subsidies (except when they do). The saddest thing about these decline of American manufacturing, and the fragility of supply chains is that all of this was predicted 30 years ago, but Wall Street and the billionaire management class did their typical shortsighted profits taking instead of sustainability, soured on by ideological capture of both parties. I often think about how the world would be different if the people actual won the Battle of Seattle.
  • glimshe 2y ago
    There is no such thing as "Free Market" when trading with China. Pretty every non-trivial trade with China is in fact a trade with their government, which is anything but a reflection of freedom in any shape of form. But this isn't simply protectionism. In terms of dollar value and jobs lost, the drone trade is minuscule. It's about military technology and spying - and this is not paranoia, I guess I can't prove it to you, but I can at least say it.
• toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Oof, perhaps time to stock up if you rely on this equipment.
  • neilv 2y ago
    > Oof, perhaps time to stock up if you rely on this equipment. (I didn't read the bill, but based on the article alone...) Looks like it's a tentative ban on usage, not sale nor ownership. And currently with no "pre-ban" grandfathering-in, nor compensation for US people who'd be affected by the ban (e.g., investments in equipment, operations disrupted, migration costs).
    • neilv 2y ago
      One measure that would be interesting: a buyback of banned DJI gear, issuing vouchers that can be spent with non-disapproved drone brands. That might help make DJI owners whole, and consistent with some of the presumed goals behind banning use of DJI. Though it's spending taxpayer money.
      • Velofellow 2y ago
        The problem from my perspective, running a small DJI fleet in Civil Engineering, is that there are few comparative turnkey options from non-disapproved drone brands that actually compete with what I'm using now. The ones that could, are drastically more expensive. From my understanding / research, the approved suppliers are largely focusing on the LE, Military markets. Current list of cleared UAS https://www.diu.mil/blue-uas-cleared-list https://www.diu.mil/blue-uas-cleared-list
• seydor 2y ago
  populist shot on the foot
• Havoc 2y ago
  Seems a bit pointless banning the market leader?
  • nacs 2y ago
    Yes this is a strange one. There is no viable competitor to DJI for consumers when it comes to the software side especially -- DJI software is miles ahead of the other drone producers (on-drone and their mobile apps).
    • rcpt 2y ago
      When I try to download DJI fly app from the Play Store it always crashes.
      • ganeshkrishnan 2y ago
        which drone do you have? there is a DJI fly app version that you have to sideload. The current ones on playstore are just fine
        • rcpt 2y ago
          Mini 2
          • ganeshkrishnan 2y ago
            I always had sideloaded fly app for mini 2. You can get it directly on the dji website
      • goryramsy 2y ago
        [dead]
      • rozap 2y ago
        Like they said, the market leader.
      • jvolkman 2y ago
• Zealotux 2y ago
  Naive question: what prevents Americans from simply buying Dji products in Canada? It's a physical product, so banning it like TikTok or big vehicles is impossible, or am I missing something?
  • burnte 2y ago
    Since the control apps tap into GPS so they know when you're in a restricted zone, the gov't could simply make them mark all of the US as a restricted zone and the drone will never fly. I have one, I'm not happy about this.
    • flutas 2y ago
      I'm going back to the first gen mavic here in memory, but... Didn't they run Android, and you could root them to remove the no fly zones?
      • treprinum 2y ago
        The old hack doesn't work anymore.
    • bprater 2y ago
      This is the correct answer. DJI will happily geofence any area in America to be able to keep selling their project here.
      • yreg 2y ago
        But will they happily geofence all of it if they are not allowed to keep selling their product?
    • LeifCarrotson 2y ago
      This would have to come from the firmware in the drone looking up what the no-fly zones were. GPS is transmit-only location, it can't write no-fly zone data to a particular drone. The drone would look it up through a connected cell phone using a web service like this: https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr_map_ims/html/ https://tfr.faa.gov/tfr_map_ims/html/ I think (hope) it would be a hard sell to send different data from faa.gov to DJI drone lookups versus other brands, but on the other hand this complete brand ban is apparently politically possible.
• gwbas1c 2y ago
  What is DJI, why is it being banned, and why should the general public care about this? (In all seriousness, nothing I've read about "DJI" even explains the basics of the issue.)
  • hooverd 2y ago
    The consumer market has had it too good for too long.
    • FpUser 2y ago
      Yeah, they have to suffer and pay through the nose. That'll teach them right
  • Sparkle-san 2y ago
    DJI arguably makes the best consumer camera drones on the market. Why ban them? Because they're Chinese probably. https://www.dji.com/camera-drones https://www.dji.com/camera-drones
    • squarefoot 2y ago
      Probably yes. The industry can fight with quality or price against Chinese bad products and non Chinese good products, but products that are both Chinese and top notch quality are going to dominate the market because of comparatively lower costs. Now, that law can indeed have some basis, in theory, but tailoring it to a single brand won't achieve much as the Chinese industry can rebrand products at a cost and in times that are a fraction of a fraction of what it takes to any western democratic country to adjust the law against another brand. On the other hand, they can't make a generic law against say suspicious code running on consumer devices that could be used to exfiltrate personal data, as it would potentially hit every connected device out there, including western branded ones. My impression is that they (the law makers) are almost facing the wall where they should admit that closed proprietary devices are generally unsafe and bad, but can't because it would hurt the same industry that contributed to their campaigns, so they direct all weapons against the external enemy. "We're good, they're bad", and end of the story.
• henvic 2y ago
  DJI is, by far, the best drone equipment brand for photography, industrial usage, etc. It's disheartening to witness the US embracing protectionism for high-tech. If the United States does this, it might as well join the European Union's decadence in killing tech startups by stifling the competitiveness of their market...
  • empath75 2y ago
    It's definitely economic protectionism but it's mostly protectionism for national security reasons. I assume the US is going to start manufacturing drones for war in large numbers in the near term and they need to be made at home (or at least by allies).
    • svachalek 2y ago
      This seems likely. For those that haven't been following the war in Ukraine, now that all the Cold War munitions have been mostly used up, drones are now the primary weapon of both sides due to literal "bang per buck". It seems clear that drones are the 21st century weapon of choice.
      • surfingdino 2y ago
        > It seems clear that drones are the 21st century weapon of choice. Only for targeted attacks. The Russian way of prosecuting war is still a shower of shells, rockets, and a mob with guns. Drones are retail, Russians do wholesale.
    • zamadatix 2y ago
      If this were the case I'd expect it to be related to all drones from China though. It also doesn't seem needed given the contracts can just state the requirement without extra hoopla.
    • Tepix 2y ago
      Those drones will be built for war, how are they competing with DJI who refuses to let their drones be used for war?
• mrandish 2y ago
  This is so misguided it's breathtaking. Even if one buys into the supposed "harm" it's apparently trying to address, by targeting a specific corporate entity the proposed legislation won't do anything meaningful toward those ends. But it will confuse the market and hurt U.S. hobbyist consumers while being largely unenforceable anyway. It's one of those things that's just so dumb you assume it's only congressional election year virtue signaling designed to get some headlines and then be quietly negotiated away during 'reconciliation', yet congressional processes are so dysfunctional there's always a risk it accidentally becomes law.
  • bluescrn 2y ago
    Be thankful that consumer/hobbyist drones haven't been banned entirely already (banning other model aircraft along with them as collateral damage). Especially after all the footage of essentially-hobby-grade drones with familiar open-source flight controller software being turned into very effective weapons of war in Ukraine.
    • Teever 2y ago
      We'll what happens after the first public vigilante action against a corrupt cop who got a paid vacation instead of a jail sentence. But I think that the cat is out of the bag and that DRM will be the attempted solution to this kind stuff. It's going to go poorly though. What part can you regulate and control? Not the batteries or the motors, or the off the shelf microcontrollers.
      • lupusreal 2y ago
        They could put anybody who assembles those parts into a drone into prison. Of course it would still be technically feasible to make one anyway, just as it's technically feasible to make an autosear, or for that matter a whole gun. Doesn't mean it can't be banned.
        • Teever 2y ago
          If they weren't able to stop people from growing and distributing marijuana then I doubt they'll be able to stop this.
• bluescrn 2y ago
  "Within that bill is a small section that bans DJI from using the FCC frequencies" So DJI drones as a whole aren't banned, just the parts that transmit?
  • judge2020 2y ago
    I imagine it prevents any remote control from working if it prohibits "FCC frequencies".
    • bluescrn 2y ago
      But if you could control the DJI drone with some other transmitter, perhaps running OpenTX, and also replaced the video downlink, then there'd be no DJI hardware using those frequencies.
      • dylan604 2y ago
        I'm surprised there's no language saying that they must be tethered
• adolph 2y ago
  So the amendment/act [0] makes a change to "47 U.S. Code § 1601 - Determination of communications equipment or services posing national security risks" [1] to add DJI. Although the direct inclusion of an entity in US code is odd, it does follow from the 2019 NDAA (Sec. 889. Prohibition on certain telecommunications and video surveillance services or equipment. "...Huawei Technologies Company or ZTE Corporation...") which included based on that bill's text. 0. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr2864/text https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr2864/text 1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/1601 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/1601
• ganeshkrishnan 2y ago
  US is spiralling down and I feel like I am in a Truman Show with egregious presidential behaviours, dragging the world into wars which it doesn't need, banning chips, even sanctioning open source (RISC) software. And this is further making the rest of the world enraged, china more so. Today they released Open source Deep Seek which beats GPT 4o in coding problems. The train has left the station and the US is stuck. On the wrong platform. With no ticket.
  • _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    Haha sure. Let me guess, the train is to a third tier Chinese city no one is interesting in going to, on tracks that the local government can't afford to pay the construction financing on, let alone future maintenance.
    • tredre3 2y ago
      I'm sure you're right that third tier Chinese cities are awful. But major Chinese cities are very far ahead of America in terms of infrastructure. Similarly DJI is very far ahead of any of its competitors. Banning Chinese things because of politics is one thing. But pretending it's because they're inferior is just ridiculous.
      • _DeadFred_ 2y ago
        Ah yes, the city built yesterday is nicer than the city built 100 years ago. And the point is? China funded all that pretty infrastructure on massive local debt that the fees are not covering. Will be interesting to see how that works out long term. Edit: I love China. I love the chinese people. I loved Shanghai of the 2010s. I've worked with a ton of amazing chinese developers in the Bay Area that were stranded after tiananmen, and I'm sad for their tragedy but they were definitely a boon to the USA. I don't think Americans are superior to Chinese in any way. I also don't think a new building/infrastructure being nicer than old buildings/infrastructure proves anything anyone who upgraded to a new car from an old one doesn't already know.
    • danielspace23 2y ago
• hooverd 2y ago
  We should ban Creality and Bambu Lab too. Imagine if we also strangled consumer 3D printing for dumb reasons. You should only be allowed to print on $100k+ Stratasys for natsec reasons, of course.
  • Ccecil 2y ago
    Creality/Bambu killed more small companies (and Reprap) than it bothered Stratasys IMHO. But yes...there very well may be a security concern there too. Bambu sends/receives info from the companies servers. At least once this has allowed a supposed firmware update to cause a large number of printers to start printing uncommanded. This is a major safety and security risk and it was largely ignored by the consumer community due to Bambu "making things easier". So yeah...perhaps we should start looking into these companies...and exactly where their subsidies do/may come from.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
• ralusek 2y ago
  A few things to note here. 1.) DJI offers many drones related to infrastructure mapping and maintenance, as well as agricultural tasks. From a national security perspective, it is a non-trivial threat vector for a Chinese company to not only have intimate knowledge of US infrastructure by being their drone supplier, but also by becoming a dependency of US infrastructure. In the event of a war, all of the drones could be grounded or used for nefarious purposes. 2.) When it comes to protectionism, I'm generally against it, but I have different thoughts when it comes to China. They have banned Uber, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, etc, and just make their own versions of it. Then they have absolutely no respect for international laws when it comes to IP. They don't compete economically according to the same rules as everyone else, and don't deserve to be treated the same way. 3.) I have 2 DJI drones. The fact that there is no mention of compensation in this legislature is absurd. Fortunately, I don't rely on these for my business, but imagine if you were a filmmaker, tree trimmer, real estate agent, etc, who had bought many drones for your business. Not only are you grounding the tools that they've already come to depend on, but there isn't an existing viable alternative on the market for many of these tasks.
  • beacon294 2y ago
    All good points, and it's painful to see you flagged likely by some political operation.
  • cesarb 2y ago
    > In the event of a war, all of the drones could be grounded or used for nefarious purposes. That's only an issue if the drone somehow depends on an external Internet-based server, instead of just a plain radio link between the drone and its controller. The law should target that unnecessary dependency, if it exists, instead of banning even standalone drones.
  • nindalf 2y ago
    Kudos to you for being able to make the first 2 points fairly despite being personally affected by this. Rare that you'd see that. Most people would start with the 3rd point and try to minimise anything that contradicts.
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• dangoor 2y ago
  For people wonder how this got there, the blame goes to Rep. Elise Stefanik: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2864 https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2864 That bill was tacked onto a big "must pass" defense authorization and may not have survived on its own. Here's an article with some speculation on why Stefanik introduced this bill: https://dronexl.co/2024/06/06/drone-industry-outrage-stefanik-anti-china-legislation/ https://dronexl.co/2024/06/06/drone-industry-outrage-stefani...
  • TylerE 2y ago
    What a shocker. One of the most worthless partisan blowhards in congressional history. She's Dick Cheney to MTG/Boeberts Dubya Bush.
    • hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
      The sicker thing to me is how she (like many) was actually relatively moderate until she completely hitched her wagon onto the Trump train. Another Profile in Cowardice. An overview: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/women-rule/2023/01/06/two-takes-on-the-transformation-of-elise-stefanik-00076742 https://www.politico.com/newsletters/women-rule/2023/01/06/t... All of these politicians who have these completely transactional relationships, I just find utterly gross. I mean, do they have any actual friends? For example, Trump completely disparaged Ted Cruz's wife and father in 2016, Cruz called Trump a "pathological liar" back then, only to do a total 180 and turn into another boot licker.
      • rayiner 2y ago
        Politicians have put aside their personal beefs with Trump in response to their constituents. The republican base doesn’t want foreign wars and tax cuts, they want to kick the illegal immigrants out of the country and curtail foreign trade. Remember when Joe Biden told black voters Romney “wants to put them back in chains?” The Republican base wants their version of that guy, and that’s Trump. For Stefanik, Cruz, etc., their job is to put aside their personal preferences and get on board with what their constituents want.
• prmoustache 2y ago
  Who decided it is a good idea to pass brands / companies specific bills? If DJI is doing nasty things, prohibit the nasty things DJI doing in the law, not the brand. Then condemn DJI if needed. How do this law protect from any DJi competitor doing the same stuff (or even a spinoff company through a complex scheme)?
  • croes 2y ago
    If they ban nasty things as such they can't do them themselves anymore without breaking the law. Not that they care.
  • cratermoon 2y ago
    I wonder, though, could this be considered an unconstitutional bill of attainder? That's an act of a legislature declaring a person, or a group of people, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, without a trial. Article I, Section 9, iii: "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed".
    • tdhoot 2y ago
      That's one of the arguments being made by TikTok in their challenge against the "TikTok ban" bill.
    • markemer 2y ago
      That’s been my thought since the TikTok ban as well. It was meant for people, but this for sure seems to meet the spirit of the prohibition. Does it actually violate it? We’ll have to see once the cases work their way through.
  • ethagnawl 2y ago
    Maybe Elise Stefanik was just really upset that she had to side-load the sketchy DJI APK on her Android device?
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    [deleted]
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• honeybadger1 2y ago
  Bad governing, and it only continues to get worse here. My decision to retire in a 2nd or 3rd world country is becoming clearer every election cycle.
• twelve40 2y ago
  This is the best present ever to everyone else in the world who is buying DJI drones by the thousands right now.
• ridgitdigit 2y ago
  Nothing is going to save the failing empire and this is just another signpost on the road to it's demise.
• system2 2y ago
  "The bill as it stands does not provide any compensation to those that could be affected by this ban, if it is retroactive." This is frustrating.
• lacoolj 2y ago
  So, anyone know what DJI is without googling first? Cuz this article doesn't say.
  • neuronerdgirl 2y ago
    God I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm working on getting a newsletter up and running and I'm so focused on best writing practices and these guys can't even remember to define their acronyms first?
    • cesarb 2y ago
      > and these guys can't even remember to define their acronyms first? DJI is not an acronym, it's the name of a company. And DJI is the most famous drone company; asking to "define DJI", on an article for a site about drones like that one, would be like asking to "define Boeing" on an article for a site about airplanes.
      • neuronerdgirl 2y ago
        Boeing is a word that looks like a proper noun and, more importantly, is a much more well-known company than DJI. Moreover, for those of us who don't know it's a company, DJI looks like an acronym, so the writer should have clarified, aka defined it.
  • bnchrch 2y ago
    It's the worlds premier consumer drone manufactor. Founded in 2006, worth over $15 billion. It's not quite as widely known as say Apple, Google, or Disney. But it has more brand awareness than most other modern brands. I'd recon it beats Alibaba, Figma, Webflow, etc...
  • Muromec 2y ago
    Ever seen the videos of ... thing being dropped on people from a drone in the last two something years? That drone is usually DJI Mavic
  • Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
• dang 2y ago
  Related: DJI Seems to Believe That It Is Possible Its Drones Will Be Banned - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40609973 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40609973 - June 2024 (1 comment) DJI might get banned next in the US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40171565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40171565 - April 2024 (81 comments) In a first, FAA rescinds DJI drone's Remote ID compliance status - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36732256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36732256 - July 2023 (6 comments) Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33150567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33150567 - Oct 2022 (188 comments) US will ban investment in 8 Chinese companies, including DJI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29566125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29566125 - Dec 2021 (10 comments) GOP’s top FCC official calls for ban on DJI drone sales in US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28951488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28951488 - Oct 2021 (1 comment) FCC Official calls for ban on DJI drones - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28939517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28939517 - Oct 2021 (4 comments) US Government adds DJI to commerce blacklist over ties to Chinese government - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25468406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25468406 - Dec 2020 (1 comment) Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24444443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24444443 - Sept 2020 (102 comments) Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15820987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15820987 - Dec 2017 (72 comments) --- Side note on the current post: usually we downweight "bill goes through intermediate state change" stories because they tend to be follow-ups [1] rather than significant new information [2]. That is, the discussion tends to be substantively the same at each step. I've made an exception in this case because there (maybe) hasn't been too much discussion of this one so far. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=follow-up%20downweight&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22significant%20new%20information%22%20by%3Adang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
• JKCalhoun 2y ago
  I've put off picking up a drone. Should I hurry up and get one now?
• saos 2y ago
  Wait what lol
• btreecat 2y ago
  Interesting knock-on effect to RID of this goes through.
• Invictus0 2y ago
  Everyone in the comments seems to be against this: why? Let's build up a great domestic drone company here in the US.
  • anigbrowl 2y ago
    Surely this is possible without just banning competitors, no?
    • Invictus0 2y ago
      The competition is literally an arm of the state of China, which is able to subsidize the business and send prices through the floor. Why would any entrepreneur choose to compete with a state-backed enterprise? And by the way, have you heard of tariffs? We literally "ban" all kinds of products with very high tariffs.
      • anigbrowl 2y ago
        You can build your own drone quite cheaply using open source technologies, so I don't believe that industrial competition is as impossible as you say; especially given the existence of US subsidies/tax breaks for anything remotely defense related. And by the way, have you heard of good manners? They make discussions much more productive than smug comebacks.
        • nirav72 2y ago
          >you can build your own drone quite cheaply using open source technologies Problem is that literally ever single part that goes into building a DIY drone is sourced from China. You can 3d print the frame. But that's about it. Most drone hobbyist buy them from sellers in the U.S that import them in bulk from China or they order directly from sites like AliExpress.
  • logicchains 2y ago
    Banning foreign drones just gives domestic drone companies even less incentive to compete on quality. If the foreign drone company is benefiting unfairly from subsidies, then the way to beat them is to subsidise US drone companies, creating fair competition.
• ninininino 2y ago
  In this thread, people not understanding that we've literally watched in the past year as consumer drones with IEDs attached to them have made the $10 million M1 Abrams tanks obsolete and what that means for war and its downstream implications for manufacturing bases.
  • consumer451 2y ago
    Although it should be noted that it's not DJI drones doing that damage. They seem to be used for spotting, while more DIY-style FPV drones are the ones blowing up tanks. Of course, those parts likely also come from sources in China. However, the software is more along the lines of FOSS like ArduPilot or PX4.
  • ninininino 2y ago
    Addendum: for anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/26/1247403968/ukraine-pulls-abrams-tanks-from-front-lines-russia-drone-threats https://www.npr.org/2024/04/26/1247403968/ukraine-pulls-abra... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/26/ukraine-withdraws-abrams-tanks-amid-drone-attacks/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/26/ukraine-wi... https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-abrams-tanks-19d71475d427875653a2130063a8fb7a https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-abrams-tanks-1...
• ulfw 2y ago
  So what's America's plan to survive? Ban almost everything they used to buy? (i.e. goods manufactured in China) Which Made in the Good Ol' US of A consumer drones are people supposed to purchase instead of a DJI Mini?
  • markemer 2y ago
    We make so much in China, I don’t get what the deal is, here. Just that a US billionaire isn’t making the money?
    • redserk 2y ago
      Once DJI gets banned, a new consumer company will come around and will happily import all the parts from China then slap on a substantial markup. I'm placing bets that DJI will somehow whitelabel the drones. It's funny the lengths the US public and political machine will go to avoid blaming the business sector that outsourced all of everything to China over the last few decades. Chinese manufacturing got the tools and know-how to build these devices and have done a great job iterating on that knowledge across many different sectors and product categories.
      • hangonhn 2y ago
        Didn't we discover this recently? Like some domestic drone company was supplying drones to the law enforcement but most of the parts and software came from DJI. Yep: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/business/china-drones-anzu-dji.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/business/china-drones-anz...
  • MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • ulfw 2y ago
      Oh yes someone who calls out US stupidity must be earning 50 cents. Funny how you forgot the (effective) ban on Chinese EVs (sorry "100% tariff only") too. Let's not even get into the ban of other manufacturers such as Huawei. So, more $100,000 Elon Cybertrucks are going to save the planet from the climate crisis we are facing? I stand by my question: what is the big plan here? Try to be somehow competitive by piece by piece banning the place you literally built up with your excessive imports?
• danielspace23 2y ago
  It's interesting to see how the reactions differ between here and the articles on the ban on TikTok. And some even thought that the users who wrote to their government representatives were bots! Whenever the US bans or sanctions something, that impacts people, whether it's drone nerds or teens looking at silly videos. It just so happens that most people here seem to be outside of the TikTok target demographic, so we can't sympathize with a group that will be forcefully deprived of a perfectly functional product, but we can with the other.
  • questhimay 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • dylan604 2y ago
      Why do you expect only the teenage users of TikTok to not understand? I would say the vast majority of all TikTok users wouldn't/couldn't understand. If not that, they've definitely consumed enough content specifically swaying them in the other direction that they would be defensive about it without even knowing they've been swayed
    • mightyham 2y ago
      >I didn't expect Hacker news users to not understand the DJI ban, and that China and all its companies are driven by a dictator that is actively supporting a war on free world. For someone who claims to be aware of geopolitics it's funny that you are basically just repeating a state department talking point. China has not infringed on other countries' sovereignty to even a fraction of the extent that the "free world" has. And it seems you don't believe that China has the right to govern it's own affairs using a system different from your own.
    • danielspace23 2y ago
      In my opinion, they understood it perfectly and reacted as they could, even by sending emails to their representatives to try and stop the ban on TikTok. HN users are understanding it as well: it's just a move by the US govt to try and keep an extremely valid, but not US-controlled, product out of people's hands. It seems to me that the only ones who don't understand the ban are those trying to justify it as anything other than what it is.
• dotBen 2y ago
  I worry that this all removes the ability to have a sensible and legitimate conversation about DJI. Elise Stefanik can go fuck herself for all the reasons listed elsewhere, lets get that on the table. BUT we should be thoughtful, if not worried, about DJI. Here's a couple of reasons: 1) When the original Mavic Pro was released I showed mine to someone who had worked in US intelligence. His jaw dropped and said that based on other stuff he'd heard in his circles and now marrying it up with the product in his hands, it was clear IP that had been stolen from US DOD contractors and the government itself was in this device. 2) We know that the CCP has influence over all Chinese companies. I worked for Uber when we were operating in China and saw first hand the influence and access Chinese government had over operations and data. ANYONE who claims otherwise hasn't had first hand experience or is a shill (there's a lot of those around - there's more Chinese intelligence activity in Silicon Valley than in DC. I encountered that at Uber too.) 3) The amount of tracking that DJI can do and send home to China is concerning. Sensors, GPS and of course camera footage. When we worry about companies like Huawei intruding into our infrastructure, it's still at the data layer. DJI represents exposure into the kinetic layer which opens up all kinds of further vectors of concern. 4) These are being used for war, for now for the most part "on our side" (Ukraine) but DJI is already trying to disable some of that and is picking sides. Next time it might not be our side that wins the advantage. 5) You can't legislate "for the bad stuff" that could happen, which a few other commenters have suggested. The "bad stuff" would be happening on Chinese servers in China. It's out of jurisdiction. You buy a Chinese product like this, you're agreeing to the terms of engagement occurring outside of your friendly US/European jurisdictions. When this happens the only thing a country can do is ban the import, and here we are... I have not bought the more recent versions of the DJI drones as I'm very conflicted on using DJI products based on what I know and what I can see up the road. I would love to pay 20-50% more for similar products from a US/Western company. I'm fine with them being manufactured in China but I want the company and the servers and the software operated in friendly countries (just like Apple). (also, the voting on this comment is fascinating - lots of upvote and then suddenly a ton of downvotes. There's either lot of pro-Chinese brigading here or something else going on. If you disagree with my points please reply instead)
  • FeistySkink 2y ago
    So Skydio?
• sschueller 2y ago
  So I guess the new viable business strategy in the US is: 1. Find a sector which a foreign companies dominates 2. Enter this sector even with a bad product 3. Go to congress and get the other ones banned because they are "insert reason here".
  • mandibles 2y ago
    The mercantilist impulse will live forever.
  • surfingdino 2y ago
    Every country does it from time to time. We are going to see the end of globalisation as we have known it for the last 30+ years. The Russians and the Chinese made everyone realise that it is better to make stuff at home.
  • nashadelic 2y ago
    The effect is that the US loses its competitive edge in international markets. Is another country going to buy Tesla or BYD? Are they going to buy a DJI or an overpriced US drone? It might protect companies locally but for how long?
    • echelon 2y ago
      And what happens when you taking dumping to the logical extreme? You wind up with nobody domestically that can do any advanced work at all, because everyone gets put out of business. Then we have nothing to export and no skill or capability gradient to climb. BYD exists because of Chinese economic protectionism. China carved out a space for its domestic products to grow. We should do the same.
  • 83 2y ago
    Has there been any evidence this was pushed by lobbyists? If you look at what's happening in Ukraine It's pretty much a given that the US defense sector is looking at ways to improve the US small drone manufacturing capabilites, and have less potentially hostile drones flying over their own territory.
• bprater 2y ago
  DJI isn't just a drone company. They've been actively moving into audio/video production very rapidly. If this ban sticks, they will lose their FCC license, and your Pocket 3 camera (or any DJI device) will no longer be able to connect to your phone.
• neuronexmachina 2y ago
  I'm curious if Anzu Robotics would be permitted under the ban. For those unfamiliar, they use DJI Mavic 3 hardware manufactured in Malaysia with US-written software: https://www.therobotreport.com/anzu-robotics-launches-u-s-based-clone-of-dji-mavic-3/ https://www.therobotreport.com/anzu-robotics-launches-u-s-ba...
  • dji4321234 2y ago
    They shouldn't be; they use DJI basebands, so banning DJI and their affiliates using the FCC Covered List should also prevent Anzu from getting new FCC equipment approvals. It's unclear whether the FCC would revoke existing approvals, although it certainly seems like what Congress wants. And if they do, it's unclear if they'd go to the effort to hunt down Anzu and Cogito, but on paper, they certainly should. By the way, there's no US-written software on Anzu drones. They're just green Mavic 3 Enterprises with a phone app that integrates the DJI SDK. Flying a DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise and an Anzu Raptor using Aloft Air Control will produce exactly identical results in terms of American-ness and data transfer.
• hindsightbias 2y ago
  I tried to find a non-Chinese router last week. They don't exist.
  • jhdias 2y ago
    Draytek.
• UncleOxidant 2y ago
  Does this just ban importing DJI products (bad enough) or does it also ban owning and/or flying a DJI drone you already own? (really bad if that's the case, but also would be difficult to enforce)
  • dji4321234 2y ago
    It adds DJI to the FCC Covered List, meaning they can't get new FCC approvals. The FCC could choose whether or not to revoke existing FCC Equipment Authorizations for existing DJI drones. If they do revoke the existing Equipment Authorizations, then the drones become illegal RF transmitters and wouldn't be legal to fly, although enforcement would border on impossible.
  • aeyes 2y ago
    The text specifically calls out that software and "services" are to be banned: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2864/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2864... Since the software phones home it most likely won't work anymore once the ban is in effect.
• m3kw9 2y ago
  Their line of thinking maybe that firmware updates can basically do anything
• kristianpaul 2y ago
  Is this going eventually impact TV companies like LG , Samsung and such? I bet there are more Chinese made devices already spread worldwide because of reasons….
  • nacs 2y ago
    LG & Samsung are South Korean companies, not Chinese, so they aren't a target (yet).
• gandalfgeek 2y ago
  Keep seeing DJI drones at local police dept open houses. They even have a "drone unit" that specializes in SAR, hazardous recon type scenarios. Given extensive existing use throughout US local law enforcement, fire depts etc, not sure if this will actually happen. Or maybe they all mass-migrate to Anduril solutions?
  • dji4321234 2y ago
    It's going to be a disaster for SAR, policing, firefighting, and all kinds of public good. The whole thing is an incredibly shortsighted move that will literally cost lives. The goal, I think, is that these organizations will migrate to Skydio or BRINC (as they have the only reasonably viable drones for most of these use cases IMHO). The reality is that they'll buy Autel (just as Chinese as DJI) or just keep using DJI and hoping the FCC Radio Police don't show up, which is probably a safe bet. Anduril don't really sell into this space.
    • MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
      In five years the US will have a prolific consumer drone industry and will have hardly skipped a beat. This is a good move for the US from a long-term security and economic standpoint. There are some short term pains but long-term this is good. Did you get paid 50 cents to write all these posts?
  • SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
    I know a state police drone pilot. There are 6 people on the team. They use Mavic 2A and 3 drones for thermal. Mostly surveillance. They use DJI Avata for whipping through a house faster than people can. They use this for hostage and other possibly dangerous scenarios. I know for a fact they are often breaking the FAA laws on lights and line of sight. They don’t care because they’re “good guys”.
• surfingdino 2y ago
  DJI owns Hasselblad. It will be interesting to see if Hasselblad get hit by this as well. Not that I want to see it, just curious if there may be collateral damage.
  • arjvik 2y ago
    Fingers crossed it doesn't, would hate to see it go down.
• michael_vo 2y ago
  I wish there was a way for the public to vote on all of these bills! We need to be able to give feedback to these senators about what the public wants. And to me the public wants DJI.
  • nsvd 2y ago
    Yes, if only there was some kind of democratic process in this country, where citizens could influence the laws that are passed...
    • aeyes 2y ago
      Is this some kind of sarcastic joke? Anti-China legislation is popular with both parties. So who do you vote for in a two-party system?
      • asadotzler 2y ago
        You vote for the side that's most favorable to reform and then vote for the people within that party most likely to bend things toward your goals, ideally slowly shifting one side's stance toward yours until there is a difference between the parties. You and everyone you can convince go do that work, and it is work, for 5-10 cycles and you might effect meaningful change. There was never a "one election will fix everything" in the US and people who pretend that's the only path and use that to discount the possibility of change were never serious about change to begin with. Had they been serious, they'd have studied history enough to see you rarely get what you want with one election cycle. It's the quitters that got us into this uniparty situation on so many issues. Don't be a quitter, get active and stay active until you see the change you want.
• balls187 2y ago
  I cannot see how this will pass legal challenge. Banning a Drone Manufacturer simply because the manufacturer is Chinese? There aren't ties to the Chinese military, are there?
  • kube-system 2y ago
    > There aren't ties to the Chinese military, are there? From a practical perspective, it could be at any time. China hasn't embraced the free market the same way the west does, and doesn't give private companies the same degree of autonomy you're used to seeing elsewhere. Broadly speaking, if the Chinese government needs a company within their jurisdiction to cooperate with them, they can enforce cooperation. As an example, even with publicly held companies, the Chinese government will take out "special management shares" that give the government positions on the board with unique power to direct management within a company and direct management decisions. It's not like the West where companies have theit own management that might disagree with the government and battle in court. In China, the government can simply become the management of a company.
    • balls187 2y ago
      That would be an after the fact justification, which could be used to justify banning any company that operates in China.
      • kube-system 2y ago
        Not every company, just the ones with military relevance. But for the purposes of a national security discussion, the situation that is being planned for is not the current-state peacetime -- it is the after the fact contingency.
• ddxv 2y ago
  Sad to see the US fall further into nationalism and protectionism when it comes to better Chinese products rather than promoting competition in the US markets.
• sheepscreek 2y ago
  “It’s complicated”.
• ysofunny 2y ago
  so usa congress admits chinese drones are better ? but maybe (or now) usa senate must admit that they can keep up with china in drone manufacturing speed !? this is in adition to tiktok, but then I wonder how much of what amazon sales is made in china
• Kye 2y ago
  Maybe I never got to the part of an economics education that covers exceptions having stopped at intro econ, but don't trade wars almost always lead to bad times?
  • FredPret 2y ago
    The theory is that it leads to worse outcomes for the weaker partner and less-bad outcomes for the stronger one. - People used to think Japan was going to overtake the USA, until a short trade war in the 80's sent Japan on a downward spiral. - The trade war against Russia hurt the West a lot with higher energy and food prices, but it whacked the Russian economy very much harder. - The same thing can be said for the West vs USSR - it hurt the West, but bankrupted the USSR
    • TaylorAlexander 2y ago
      Isn’t the US the weaker partner here?
      • FredPret 2y ago
        Struggling to understand in which context the US is the weaker partner. - GDP [0] - Total wealth [1] - Military - Demographics (US - growing, China - aging and shrinking) - Soft power [0] https://tradingeconomics.com/ https://tradingeconomics.com/ [1] [https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/global-wealth-report-2023/_jcr_content/pagehead/link2.0466322293.file/PS9jb250ZW50L2RhbS9hc3NldHMvd20vZ2xvYmFsL2ltZy9nbG9iYWwtZmFtaWx5LW9mZmljZS9kb2NzL2dsb2JhbC13ZWFsdGgtcmVwb3J0LTIwMjMtZW4ucGRm/global-wealth-report-2023-en.pdf https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/glo...]
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • kredd 2y ago
          Manufacturing capability and infrastructure would be my guess. I guess if the trend continues and factories keep moving to India and Mexico, it might be a different game in 10 years.
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  There’s no reason for the US to allow any business with a nation that not only has named the US as an enemy state multiple times, but also regularly breaks international law against friendly countries, for example, in the south China sea. The US and European Union should formally sanction China.
• deepGem 2y ago
  DJI's response (a bit dated) https://dronedj.com/2024/03/02/dji-response-drone-ban-us/ https://dronedj.com/2024/03/02/dji-response-drone-ban-us/ The allegations are so subjective that they sound like some middle schooler complaining to their mom. “DJI drones are collecting vast amounts of sensitive data – everything from high-resolution images of critical U.S. infrastructure to facial recognition technology and remote sensors that can measure an individual’s body temperature and heart rate.” DJI's response Technically, DJI suggests using drones for body temperature checks is unfeasible. https://www.thedronegirl.com/2020/05/06/dji-coronavirus-drone-projects/ https://www.thedronegirl.com/2020/05/06/dji-coronavirus-dron... US politicians have totally lost their minds to even propose something like this.
  • datahack 2y ago
    Allowing a company that repeatedly violates basic app store rules and exports data to a country with adversarial interests unrestricted access to our infrastructure via drones is highly problematic. This problematic situation extends in many ways to critical sectors of our economy, including agriculture, energy, defense, etc. The data collected by these drones is extensive and sensitive. Crop data alone is crucial, and if this information cannot be controlled, it should not be exported. This stance is not anti-China, but no country should permit unrestricted access to its airspace for surveillance. Data is the new oil as well, especially with AI. These drone derived datasets are becoming critical path information. How else can you control the information besides a ban? I LOVE DJI and have several of these drones. But I don’t know how I feel about this because of the problematic data issues. It’s complex and the situation is very difficult.
    • downrightmike 2y ago
      Its funny because app store rules aren't laws. If we were really concerned about privacy, we'd have our own strong GDPR that mandated privacy and control measures and controls. Banning things doesn't work because the base foundational protections aren't there.
      • datahack 2y ago
• TheChaplain 2y ago
  I don't trust DJI. I was looking to replace my GoPro with the DJI Action, but their app was not on the Play-store. It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I believe I saw a site that decompiled their app and found a number of worrisome things.
  • dji4321234 2y ago
    > It can only be side-loaded on Android, because their app breaks a number of policies on privacy and data gathering. I don't think this is the reason, I think it's more that they're just too lazy to jump through the approval and maintenance hoops that come with an app store, especially because their home market (China) doesn't even use the Play Store. The iOS version of their app is Apple-approved and present in the App Store. I do research in this space. Their consumer apps are loaded to the gills with product-manager telemetry (tap/action tracing, etc., think Firebase/Flurry/whatever), and until recently they had a "sync flight logs" feature that would do what it said: give your detailed flight logs to DJI. It was opt-in, but it was easy to do by accident and many years ago there were bugs in the opt-in toggle. They just removed this feature from US apps this week (too little too late, and too attached to reality and not attached enough to political pandering). DJI also have a terrible track record with data security, with their entire AWS account getting ripped in 2017. I don't think they're explicitly a CCP data-collection front, but sufficient product telemetry is indistinguishable from surveillance malware (this applies to US-based companies and US intelligence, too, of course). However, their apps run on their own controllers are generally alright, and their enterprise apps run on their enterprise controllers in Local Data Mode are legitimately clean, barring a few versions with small bugs. I fly DJI drones all the time using DJI RCs with network credentials forgotten, and I wouldn't hesitate to use one of these for consumer use. For the truly paranoid, use a burner email and a VPN to activate the drone. I also wouldn't worry about using DJI Enterprise drones with the pro controllers in Local Data Mode for even moderately sensitive applications (infrastructure, law enforcement, etc.). Of course I wouldn't use one for US military applications, insofar as it would be foolish to use any non-allied electronic device in this way. ps - note that the analysis in the sibling comments are of older apps, DJI Go 4 and Pilot 1, not the newer flagship apps DJI Fly and DJI Pilot 2. The general theme (tons of dirty analytics platforms) remains the same, but the newer apps use more American platforms (Firebase, AWS-hosted proprietary stuff) rather than Chinese, and the "disable telemetry" and "disable data sync" options generally have fewer bugs now.
• team_gold 2y ago
  As someone who has a DJI Mini what are the options for a consumer drone made by a US company? Everything on https://www.diu.mil/blue-uas-cleared-list https://www.diu.mil/blue-uas-cleared-list is either widely different, 15x as expensive, not purchasable by civilians at all, or all of the above. Parret appears to have stopped selling their consumer model entirely. Skydio 2+ seems like the closest thing but it also no longer appears to be for sale either. All their links to the starter kit are dead and only options is to contact sales for enterprise deals.
  • Arrath 2y ago
    I was on a project that was subject to the cleared UAS list you linked, and I cannot recommend either Parrot (incredibly long boot times, underpowered motors meant it was slow and had poor station keeping in high winds) or Skydio (bad heat management/low thermal cutoffs to the point that during the California high desert summer our unit wouldn't even start due to reporting that it was overheated) at all. So maybe its not too bad that they're no longer for sale.
  • dji4321234 2y ago
    There's nothing. Skydio exited the consumer market. Their drones had good autonomy and flight characteristics. However, they struggled with wireless link quality due to the use of consumer WiFi, and had much older, inferior camera sensors compared to even contemporary DJI drones. They were also ridiculously loud and inefficient. Their enterprise drones are comically expensive and loaded with nickel-and-dime cloud features. Parrot drones struggle with the same issues as Skydio (Skydio actually used a Parrot remote controller for their consumer drones), plus their autonomy isn't nearly as good as even Skydio's, the overall drone behavior is "clunky" (slow boot times, slow connection times, non-responsive flight controls), and even basic flight is more challenging. The main issues plaguing US consumer drones are imaging sensors and wireless link. LTE and other well-suited long range wireless technologies capable of handling speed differential between the station and access point are locked in a vault of patents. Imaging sensors are legendarily impossible to acquire in low to moderate quantities and image sensor parameters are carefully locked behind a billion levels of NDA (thus why even the Raspberry Pi camera is full of DRM).
  • 2y ago
• plandis 2y ago
  Once again the US government dances around the broader issue of data privacy. I understand it’s easier to get people to vote against Chinese products in the US on data privacy concerns but it’s irritating that Congress isn’t working on legislating rules for products that are not Chinese as well.
• throwaway48476 2y ago
  The reason the US doesn't have a real domestic drone industry is partly due to the FAA cracking down hard on the drone community.
• segmondy 2y ago
  I have no need for a drone right now, but looks like I'm now in the market for DJI drones, one or two.
  • seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    That's how banned book sales work in China: the books don't sell well until the government bans them, and then everyone wants them after that (and can easily get them since China's black market is pretty open).
• crooked-v 2y ago
  So what recourse would the public have to get compensation from the government for their now-useless consumer drones?
• hintymad 2y ago
  We can ban DJI all we want, but our military or the US itself is declining nonetheless if we don't solve our manufacturing problem like we still produce those lame suicidal drones rogue1 that has inferior spec to DJI Mavic 3 yet charges fucking $94K a pop, like the cost of making a canon shell is 10X more than Russian even though Russia is known to be one of the most corrupted country in the world, like we don't have a prosperous manufacturing industry to rely on so the cost of a specialized screw could be hundreds times more than what what China produces. I mean, we can have the best service industry in the world, but eventually we have to produce good things, no? Or in the worst case, if there's war, what do we depend on? Traders and programmers and lawyers and waiters? Are we sure we could out produce the Axis 20:1, like building a warship every 3 days (or a week?)? It pains me to see the US decline just like the Roman Empire did.
• tonetheman 2y ago
  [dead]
• vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  I'm not going to miss drones. Too many drone operators abused them to violate peoples expectation of quiet or privacy, or to harass animals, and were ignored or outright supported by other users. Laws restricting specific areas or behavior are extremely hard to enforce compared to an outright ban. The most common defense was violating your privacy wasn't technically illegal. Well, now that it is going to become illegal, don't expect my support. This should serve as a reminder to people with niche hobbies not to make everyone hate you.
  • benoliver999 2y ago
    I just had some drone photos taken of damage on the roof of my house, and it's way easier than trying to get up 4 storeys with a ladder
    • vsuperpower2020 2y ago
      No doubt.
• huggingmouth 2y ago
  Dji is like samsung; great hardware ruined by owner-hostile software. I will never buy either unless I can load standard open source software on them. I can't wait for right to repair and similar laws force these delusional companies to actually hand over control of products to their rightful owners.
• fvdessen 2y ago
  This is an interesting experiment in economic protectionism. Depending how far is the US drone industry in a few year we'll see this measure repeated
• casey2 2y ago
  This protectionism is just getting ridiculous now. You can't ship most manufacturing jobs overseas and expect china not to out compete eventually. Yes they are stealing ip, who cares, japan did the same thing. Trying to stop in now is just going to cause another depression.
  • jpgvm 2y ago
    Claiming DJI stole IP though is ridiculous. They have been so far ahead for so long anything they might have stolen ~15 years ago is surely obsolete.
• ugh123 2y ago
  GoPro should enter the drone market.
  • nirav72 2y ago
    I vaguely remember GoPro having a drone model at one point. But it didn't do well?
• crvdgc 2y ago
  Slightly off-topic, but it reminds me of the Tesla restriction around governmental buildings in China last year, citing the same set of reasons (data collection, national security, etc.). It seems that the restriction was lifted recently [1]. [1]: https://www.pcmag.com/news/china-lifts-tesla-restrictions-paving-way-for-full-self-driving-rollout https://www.pcmag.com/news/china-lifts-tesla-restrictions-pa...
• yayr 2y ago
  What will be good alternatives to DJI then?
• onerepublic 2y ago
  In 2016, Tesla released the Model 3. When Chinese consumers wanted the most advanced electric vehicles, the Chinese government communicated with Tesla in 2017 about building a factory in Shanghai to produce China-made Teslas. Currently, Tesla is the highest-selling pure electric vehicle brand in China ( Model Y sales in China in December last year were 60,055 volumes ) The intense competition in the electric vehicle market has fostered the development of high-quality Chinese EV brands such as NIO, Li Auto, XPeng, BYD, Zeekr, Xiaomi, Aion... ... In contrast, in the free and democratic America market, the response to competition in the drone market has been to ban DJI, and the response to competition in the short video market has been to ban tiktok. Let’s see in ten years which market environment will foster advanced productivity.
  • exadeci 2y ago
    It's a classic move from corporate America, foreign cars banned if less than 25 years old, high taxes on motorcycles for decades to protect Harley etc...
  • mrjin 2y ago
    When you cannot compete, then the only option left is removing competitor. Isn't that simple?
  • rozal 2y ago
    [dead]
  • _xerces_ 2y ago
    A more accurate following of the Chinese model would be for the US to insist that DJI builds its drones for the US market in the US, insist on a partnership with a US company who would then siphon off the knowhow and IP to start building competing products.
    • kaliqt 2y ago
      The key is to stop rent seeking. Musk pilots the most competitive companies on earth, so of course he isn't scared of China or anyone else, because a truly powerful company takes many dimensions of superiority, not just a few patents.
• Kim_Bruning 2y ago
  It's a bit odd. Isn't DJI selling lots of drones to Ukraine and Russia? (possibly through middlemen so they have trouble preventing it, but still)
• totalview 2y ago
  Wider implications beyond just the consumer drone market. My company and several of our clients (who are all much larger companies than us) have $100,000s - $X,000,000s of DJI enterprise drones, batteries, and payloads (Matrice 300, 350, zenmuse p1 camera, etc) I know the bill still has to go through the senate, but this is going to be a sore subject for a lot of American companies who use DJI equipment.
  • rchaud 2y ago
    No reason for the Senate to not vote it into law. There are no lobbyists telling them to do otherwise. In an election year, they desperately need to show that they can get something, anything passed.
• Mary984 2y ago
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• Mary984 2y ago
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