I would say not really. This pretty much only fits the exact use case for its specific niche need. E.g. operating in RF adverse/non-recoverable environments. Otherwise it's a waste. So technically it's still not "popular" in the sense of general popularity. You're not going to see your general drone pilot rushing to put fiber optic on thier drone. This also isn't a new concept. Its the same thing as wire-guided missiles that have been around since WWII.

A lot of top comments from HN age badly or are just blatantly incorrect/false. People are captured in their own ideology which gets reinforced by the eco chamber effect here, and so refuse to acknowledge the possibility they might be wrong or that the real world is vastly different than the one in their eco chamber (like the fact that most of the world uses Windows).

Especially true for SW engineers and other privileged people (politicians are an even better example) who due to their high status and wealth assume that if they got a well paid job, then they must be super smart and right at any other topics or areas, and then end up shocked that their viewpoint gets demolished by the masses or by the end results down the line.

In a way it's like how democracy works: it doesn't matter what is right and what is wrong, the opinion that ends up denominating is what the the masses perceive as being right.