Ask HN: Why are drones suddenly popular?
What technology in the last few years made drones this popular? Energy density of electric batteries rose a lot (2 minutes of flight X 15 minutes); so did the amount of computing power available (autolevel first, simple steering second, integration with cameras and smartphones last). Oh, and they also became cheaper for this (and unrelated reasons, like mass production). I think rebranding played a large part in it too, no-one wants an 'rc helicopter' but everyone wants a (predator) drone.