It's not really a "new frontier being misunderstood" though, it's very clear what it's value proposition is, and it's also clear from our history with aviation so far, what the challenges are. As I said in another comment, we don't even trust people to fly small drones without certification and FAA regulation, there's good reason for that, being in the air is nothing like being on a road.
To answer your question-- people in the past were expecting what has happened with small drones. Namely, that there'd be a metric fuckton of them, and that regulators would have to scramble to keep order before angry townsfolk began firing their rifles up at in the sky at them.
> we don't even trust people to fly small drones without certification and FAA regulation, there's good reason for that, being in the air is nothing like being on a road.
We don't trust people to operate cars on a road without DMV certification, FMVSS regulations, and a substantial amount of liability insurance.
