The Federal Communications Commission has banned the sale of new models of foreign drones, including widely used Chinese DJI aircraft, citing concerns they pose a national security threat and could undermine U.S. drone production.
The ban adds DJI to the FCC’s “Covered List” — a designation that blocks authorization of new equipment — effectively preventing U.S. consumers from buying new models of the Chinese company’s drones. Existing models already approved for sale, as well as those currently in use, are not affected by the ban.
The designation deals a major blow to the world’s leading consumer drone maker, as well as other top brands including Shenzhen-based Autel Robotics. It comes after years of pressure from lawmakers and FCC officials, who have argued that DJI’s dominance of the consumer drone market exposes the United States to surveillance risks and gives Chinese firms control over a technology with potential future military applications.
A thought I’ve had for a little while recently is how yearly sales strategies (as in, discounts, not just how many units have been sold) strongly encourage rapid incremental development instead of...
effectively preventing U.S. consumers from buying new models of the Chinese company’s drones. Existing models already approved for sale, as well as those currently in use, are not affected by the ban.
A thought I’ve had for a little while recently is how yearly sales strategies (as in, discounts, not just how many units have been sold) strongly encourage rapid incremental development instead of taking more time in R&D to make a standout product. If not for the fact that a company has to have a new model for this year’s Black Friday Sales than they had for last year’s Black Friday Sales, I wonder if it would be better to have 2-3 year product cycles to be able to invest more into R&D between iterations, and spend comparatively less on retooling every component in their manufacturing line every 12 months or so.
The way this ban is implemented seems like it would benefit this kind of thing too - “okay you’ve banned our 5th generation, but that’s fine because we’re still manufacturing our 4th generation for another 18 months”
Longer R&D is also more risky … less time of iteration means less time to know if your idea will work with consumers or not. If for example Apple had 5 year cycles R&D on the iPhone, one flop...
Longer R&D is also more risky … less time of iteration means less time to know if your idea will work with consumers or not.
If for example Apple had 5 year cycles R&D on the iPhone, one flop could seriously damage the company. Whereas on the current cycle, a flop is quickly recovered from (eg the latest iPhone thin has been binned and likely we will not see it again). This makes R&D worthwhile rather than dangerous.
That’s a great point too - iterating quickly means you have more immediate feedback on what was changed, but I guess I was thinking more on developing/improving the baseline features rather than...
That’s a great point too - iterating quickly means you have more immediate feedback on what was changed, but I guess I was thinking more on developing/improving the baseline features rather than on taking a risk on a different and somewhat opinionated category of product.
Also I forgot to mention in my above comment, I had mentally ruled out things like phones because for the majority of people, they’re replaced entirely when the battery capacity or performance doesn’t meet minimum expectations, and being a daily-use object it gets much heavier use than, say, a rugged sports camera (e.g. GoPro etc) for most people. I think.
From the article:
A thought I’ve had for a little while recently is how yearly sales strategies (as in, discounts, not just how many units have been sold) strongly encourage rapid incremental development instead of taking more time in R&D to make a standout product. If not for the fact that a company has to have a new model for this year’s Black Friday Sales than they had for last year’s Black Friday Sales, I wonder if it would be better to have 2-3 year product cycles to be able to invest more into R&D between iterations, and spend comparatively less on retooling every component in their manufacturing line every 12 months or so.
The way this ban is implemented seems like it would benefit this kind of thing too - “okay you’ve banned our 5th generation, but that’s fine because we’re still manufacturing our 4th generation for another 18 months”
Longer R&D is also more risky … less time of iteration means less time to know if your idea will work with consumers or not.
If for example Apple had 5 year cycles R&D on the iPhone, one flop could seriously damage the company. Whereas on the current cycle, a flop is quickly recovered from (eg the latest iPhone thin has been binned and likely we will not see it again). This makes R&D worthwhile rather than dangerous.
That’s a great point too - iterating quickly means you have more immediate feedback on what was changed, but I guess I was thinking more on developing/improving the baseline features rather than on taking a risk on a different and somewhat opinionated category of product.
Also I forgot to mention in my above comment, I had mentally ruled out things like phones because for the majority of people, they’re replaced entirely when the battery capacity or performance doesn’t meet minimum expectations, and being a daily-use object it gets much heavier use than, say, a rugged sports camera (e.g. GoPro etc) for most people. I think.