dumb and a complete waste of time
Actually I could see some night time use for it. Imagine how search and rescue can be revolutionized by this.
When you factoring insurance, liability, highly paid pilots, and fuel I think this is dramatically cheaper than getting a helicopter. To put this in perspective it can cost you $7,000 per hour for a single helicopter when a human gets lost skiing or hiking or even during a convict escape. All three of these are activities that occur thousands of times per year globally and are socialized expenses which go to taxpayers.
Even in cases where money isn't an issue but time and resources are an issue. For example imagine a earthquake or fire that knocks out power to an entire region. There's a limited amount of operational helicopters even if the money is infinite , and you have a very short amount of time to find people in rubble. so rather than trying to rally dozens of helicopters over several hours you can summon dozens of lights over the area in about a minute from space.