Your whole rant was hyperbole at its finest.
First of all, you as a consumer have the choice to buy the product or not. When the phantom 3 came out it was no surprise that the batteries would be be limited to DJI batteries only.
They did not sell you a drone (or Ford) and let you use whatever batteries (gas) you wanted to and then send a firmware update forcing you to only use their batteries (gas again).
The phantom 3 and 4 are by far the best selling drones ever made...your assertion about 'lame, disappointing, half baked' features and that their R&D team are too busy working on squeezing that last 1.5% of profits is detached from reality. Show some sales numbers or evidence to back up your claims. You cant because they are ridiculous.
You also rant about the $150 batteries...which doesnt make sense because OEM DJI batteries can be found for as little as $102 shipped. Which means the dealers are probably getting the batteries for somewhere around 70-80 or so...a fair price for the smart batteries IMO.
DJI batteries are also competitively priced, albeit a bit higher, than other comparable drones.
I think that rules out any extortion...
Searching through your post, it's hard for me to find a single thing that you got right.
Seriously. It's nearly 100% wrong - especially the part where you say that I never had freedom of choice with a battery for my Phantom 3! Up until about 8 months ago, there were no battery restrictions.
What else - lets see - $150 batteries? I was being generous. The cheapest I can find any given week are closer to $180. Just because you live in the US doesn't mean everyone does. If the DJI batteries are so good, and so fairly priced - why not re-open the market to competition? What are they afraid of? That a 3rd party battery manufacturer will release a better quality battery at 1/3 the price? Yep. You bet they are! They may have YOU fooled - but most of us are much smarter than that!
The DJI and Ford analogy is spot on. They are both vehicles that require a consumable power source to run. One is electricity, the other is gas. If Ford pulled the same stunt that DJI pulled, people would me marching on their offices and burning them down!
Finally - apart from your lack of knowledge re: DJI phantom battery history - your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired too. You rant like I slandered the Phantom 3. I did no such thing. It's a great drone with many great features. I didn't really say anything bad about the Phantom 4 - and why would I? It's essentially a Phantom 3 (which is a great device!). What I actually said - if you care to take a minute to read and comprehend - that the NEW "features" they added to the Phantom 4 are lame and half baked when compared to what they could have been with just a little more effort front the R&D team! Obstacle avoidance is a joke and useless most of the time since it only works when flying without any yaw - which is unlikely when doing any kind of videography due to lack of 360 degree gimbal. Sport Mode is too fast to take smooth video, too slow for racing and disables Obstacle Avoidance when engaged. Range and battery life are unchanged from the Phantom 3. And DJI Go still contains "features" which are dangerous to use. DJI could have - and should have - looked to Autopilot and Litchi for examples of how to add safety and robustness to the Waypoints, Follow and Orbit features.
Anyhow - I don't think I've ever seen a post as lengthy as yours was that didn't manage to get at least one little thing right in it. For that, I'm awarding you the "completely missed the point" crown and the "Oh for a hundred" trophy!
Take the rest of the night off to recover from the embarrassment, then do a little research - especially re: the batteries - at least for the past ONE YEAR - and then maybe come back and try to participate again.
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