Comment by resoluteteeth

Which US companies are going to have a $500 competent consumer drone with a great camera, solid reliability, and top of the line ease of use to sell me the day this ban goes into effect, or even 5 years down the road? The answer is none.

There are no US companies capable of serving this market. None can produce the product DJI did and consumers will abandon the market before they'll transition to a product that costs twice as much for half the value.

This is not like smartphones or laptops or televisions or any of that, it's not needed, it's a total luxury and hobby for 95% of buyers. They will walk before adopting a shitty US-based alternative and the market will shrivel and die.

So, this is a fine policy if hurting US consumers by destroying an entire field of hobby to thumb our noses at China is the goal. It's a broken policy of stimulating a US alternative is the goal. To accomplish the latter, subsidies and reasonable tariffs are the right approach, not bans.

> without having to actually figure out how to be competitive with the market leader.

This assumes end users will accept an inferior product. Without some additional pressure - subsidies or hell even nationalism - a ban alone won’t magically create on par US companies.

China has been doing this for decades so we don’t need to guess here. They seem to always bring much broader societal, financial and other support not just restrict access