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DJI drone ban passes in U.S. House — 'Countering CCP Drones Act' would ban all DJI sales in U.S. if passed in Senate (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 4 months ago (28 children)

I'm adjacent to the industry. This is dumb but I understand the reasoning. We're getting left behind in the electronics world. Nobody is creating hardware startups because every few months there's a viral blog post with a "hardware is hard" title on HN and none of the VC assholes want to fund anything but web based surveillance capitalism ad tech because it's a surefire way to make money. Even if you do get funded and you're US based you're absolutely doing all your manufacturing in China if you're remotely consumer facing (b2big-b has different rules). That means Chinese companies get all the benefits of all the labor from your highly trained engineers when they get the design files. If you try to build anything at volume in the US you have strikingly few options for boards and parts. Everything is whole number multiples of fucking PCBway and half the time it's lower quality unless you're paying aero-defense prices which is the only business anyone wants.

[+] [email protected] -12 points 4 months ago (22 children)

But why do we need to build stuff here? If it's cheaper elsewhere, let them build it and we'll do the higher paying work.

I guess there are national security concerns, but that sounds like we just need to make more friends and fewer enemies, as well as have redundancy in our supply chain (i.e. invest in other inexpensive labor markets, like LATAM, Africa, and India). The issue isn't that the US isn't making it, it's that China is making most of it. Diversify and the problem mostly goes away.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Not wrong, but the issue is complex. Drones are very obviously one of the bullets in any upcoming conflict. It's not really about spying and phoning home, it's that it would be insane to try to tell China "hey, don't invade other countries mkay?" And then say "oh also we need ammo to stop you but we don't have the ability to make brass cases or gunpowder anymore, can you send us some".

Now, while we "can", to some extent, manufacture components and complete systems, the thing about a war is that it's basically a wizard duel but with money hoses. You can't win if the Chinese are producing slaughter bots for $500 ea and the US equivalent is $100,000 (literally). Congress is praying that this will light a fire under US and more friendly foreign manufacturing supply chains to invest more because they might have a chance of breaking into a lucrative market. That said, it probably just paves the way for a two tiered market where China makes their slaughter bots for $500 and the US makes them for $50,000 but all the civil use cases get caught in the cross fire for the short to mid term...so everyone still loses, just harder.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

hey, don't invade other countries mkay?

Considering recent history, you'd better say that to US more, don't you think? or is it that your country is free to invade other countries but others doing the same is where you start considering human rights?