It seems some creep uses AirDrop to send some lewds to somebody else on a plane every other week.
I want to know my mac is using my wired and wireless network the way I intend rather than degrading the performance of WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, and other protocols that keep piling into unlicensed airspace.
I have no idea what the default for AirDrop is, I keep it open only for contacts. If it’s open by default everyone that’s crazy. Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Apple would do today, although it wouldn’t surprise me if it was like that in the past.
Which it is, you can have AirDrop on or off and to accept connections from everyone or just your contacts. All modes have their uses.
When you turn on a WiFi analyzer program and see many WiFi networks using the same spectrum, there is interference. It isn't that it "stops working" but you will get packet loss, reduced data transfer, etc. Every printer that sets up its own AP, every phone that is a hotspot, is interference.
If you want and really use these services that is one thing, but it is insane that people use WiFi to print at a mall store when they could hook up the printer to the register with a 6 foot cable.
The article itself shows a substantial degrade of WiFi performance on the Mac itself because the mac is momentarily disconnecting from the real network to stay synchronized with the lewds network.
In fact one could argue that AWDL actually reduces "interference" because two neighboring devices can communicate directly and do not need to go an additional one-hop detour over an access point.