I think the process with the drone is at least partly due to aviation regulations, but with the camera it sure sounds like the Chinese have started copying the Western pattern of "cloud-ifying" products unnecessarily.

Then again, perhaps avoiding the bigger companies and going to the OEMs or other small manufacturers directly (who would specialise only in hardware, and essentially wouldn't have the resources to set up and maintain the server side, or even an app) might be a better choice.