I own a small cheap wakeboarding boat which i use with my mates, on the sea, and nobody cares what i do with it. There are no rules about who can/can't use small boats in the UK on the sea. But if I wanted to start teaching wakeboarding as a living or charging people for rides, I'm required to pass a ski boat drivers certification, which is days of training, and written and practical exams. This is so that if I'm involving members of the public who trust me with their safety, I have proper training.
If, for personal use, I want to join a wakeboarding club and use their nice lake and flat water, they generally require me to pass a version of the SBDA so that everyone in the club is of a certain skill level, and everyone is safe in the water together. The club is then insured by the British WaterSki and Wakeboarding Association, and incidents are covered.
Both of these things are a pain, but recently a child was killed at a wakeboard park in the UK, and many of the failures were down to poor training, or bad decisions by people who probably had no interest in 'red tape'. That changed everything, and the tests were re-invented and became more difficult. Authorities are much hotter on this kind of activity now.
Any of these 'dangerous' activities are likely to bring legislation when they start to hit the the news. But if the hobby can be properly regulated or self-regulated, the legislation tends to be less severe. In the UK, the RYA encourages people to get certification if they are going to use boats, jetskis and yachts, and insurers offer heavy discounts if you have qualifications. As a result the industry still flourishes and these activities don't tend to have a bad reputation. The sector which suffers the worst in all this is jetskis, as people tend to think of them as toys and loon about on them, often too near people, and often out of control. There are many deaths attributed to jetskis, and as a result most places around my way simply won't allow them to be used. Unfortunately they attract the wrong crowd.
If 'drones' are going to become acceptable, a regulatory body needs to take charge of their use, and start to bring in training and certifications - and then the public will begin to relax about them. That will involve owners sticking to the rules - and not flying them where it is not appropriate to do so. And of course it means that commercial operators, who by definition deal with the general public, are going to be regulated the most heavily. I don't have a problem with it, personally. I wouldn't want an unqualified gas engineer fixing my boiler, even if he had all the tools and 'had done it before'. And I wouldn't want an unqualified drone pilot flying his drone on my wedding day, because I just don't know whether he's a liability or not.
