The day makers came up with the proprietary battery concept I knew consumers were/are getting screwed. For the price of a single Phantom battery you can buy almost a pair of Tattu batteries of greater capacity and much higher quality. There was no way for the buyer to establish cell quality and businesses ALWAYS use the cheapest product they can obtain in order to maximize mark up. So no, I do not believe we are being provided high quality batteries and it's quite likely one of the reasons for the 0.5C chargers is because the batteries will not tolerate repeated higher charge rate cycles. It's one of the reasons why I will not exceed a 1C charge rate with my Chroma or H batteries.
Another point with proprietary batteries and low C chargers has to do with who they are being sold to. The consumer drone market is pretty much an "any buyer" customer base, and the majority of them likely have zero experience with lithium ion batteries, chargers, cell monitoring equipment, and basic understanding of them. In selling to "anybody" the potential for disastrous residential fires caused by people lacking battery knowledge is pretty high. Consider the Hover Board debacle... So providing a system that protects the user from themselves has product liability benefits.
I agree I don't think it's so much about the companies screwing the consumers. It's more about dominating all aspects of their product on their end. Look at the props for example. You get locked into one option.
I believe a consumer is entitied to know everything they'd like to know about the product they paid for. Especially when it comes to lithium batteries. It's life or death deal having a defective cell and not knowing it.
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