Comment by tennysont

I think that tech people presume too much overlap between their own domain knowledge and war. The analysis isn't particularly bad, it's just wildly overconfident. Replacing F-35s with drones is like replacing cell towers with bluetooth mesh networks. You can hate the F-35 and love drone swarms, but they aren't in the same niche.

Cheap (~1k USD) drones are easy to intercept, vulnerable to EM/GPS jamming, require nearby operators, break easily, and can't carry enough payload to make a difference. Try to fix any one or two of these and the price will go up. As the price goes, reliability becomes more important. Try to fix them all and you're going to reinvent the missile.

One comment in this thread argued that drone factors can be protected from F-35s by burring them underground, misunderstand that such logistical hurdles are what causes military hardware to be more expensive than civilian equivalents in the first place.