Well, so much for that I guess
Yeah its really too bad. I used to love the company but now I just don't see them making things for hobbies. Anyone know of some good alternatives? Ive heard good things about lepotato?
They were never about hobbies. We were a niche that they were happy to have, but they never cared. Origionally it was about education (which has a large overlap with hobbies so they served well).
OrangePI
I had one and returned it. The hardware was good but the software was total ass
That's the biggest issue. Support.
Most of the success of the RPi is due to rasparian and community support.
Arduinos all the way down I guess
A moment of silence for the company that once connected hobbyists with affordable hardware. It was never perfect, but the profound impact on makers and industry is undeniable.
I will remember you for what you once were, not what you came to be.
2024 is going to be the year of ~~the Linux Desktop~~ enshittification. When anything you love goes public, you won't be loving it for much longer.
And thus begins "why isn't the profit line going up?" phase of the company
Eh, the only thing that made RPi better than the alternatives was the size of the community and the amount of testing done for their hardware.
RIP.
Looking forward to whatever SBCs the community migrates to in the next year or so.
The new ones are power hungry expensive monsters anyway. There are cheaper clones out there and I had pretty much decided never to pay for the gucci brand anymore.
Remember today when you reflect on what was stolen from us.
I’d argue it was taken from us several years ago when Raspberry made the decision to prioritize business customers over education and hobby during the chip shortages.
So that settles it. I have to get one now before they enshittify the new models.
The 5 is already somewhat enshittified. The Non Standard USB power that makes you buy a propietary PS is one example (which I found out after buying one for my son).
The end of a beautiful era - hats off for all the folks who made the pi what it is, the folks who will now be forced to make us sorrowful for what it will become.
Goodnight, sweet prince.
I'm glad they came out as what they already were.
It was clear that they did not feel as a non-profit foundation for many years now.
For months it was impossible for me to get any Pis at MSRP and then my employer suddenly bought 30 of them to use for signage around the office. That's when I knew the non-profit hobbyist/enthusiast org was gone.
I'm not worried about it though. In the meantime a lot of other stellar SBCs have emerged on the market.
Raspberry Pi Holdings has always been a for-profit company. This isn't some sort of new news with them going public.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a separate organization that has not gone public and continues to operate as a nonprofit. In fact, the IPO was structured to raise some funds for the foundation's global impact fund.
I am not saying that the IPO is a good thing, in fact I'm pretty certain it isn't, but it's worth knowing that Raspberry Pi is two different organizations with two different missions.
One is a tax shelter for the other got it.
This hurts.
That explains the Pi 5 pricing. They started the enshittification early.
They've already gone downhill since 2020 when they couldn't keep up with the demand and focused on B2B sales. This really isn't a surprise to me
I thought they started from the idea of creating an affordable device mostly for people that need and can't afford a proper computer... I guess money gave them amnesia
They did, and they still have the rpi foundation with that goal, as well as the for-profit subsidiary.
It's a flaw with effective altriusm-- you have a goal of fixing some large scale problem and at some point you realize you need large amounts of capital to expand your impact. But the interim period you are just going to be amassing wealth with this idea of doing good. And even then, you may never reach a point where you feel like you earned enough to solve your problem. I.e sam bankman fried
Now I'm not saying that rpi foundation hasn't done good in the world. I'm just saying that they did start off with a lofty goal and it is clear that they are wanting to expand and make more money. Maybe this means someday they'll be able to do even greater things through the rpi foundation.... but I'm not optimistic
F
Time comes for us all.
Shit. I guess my or anyone else's loyalty hasn't mattered. I've bought two competing products during the drought and now we are going to have maximum suckage from them since the investors will be driving the bus now. How long before they intentionally hold back functionality and hide it behind some bullshit subscription?
Outside of a few small local businesses that actually care about doing right by people, loyalty hasn't mattered for decades dude. Companies don't give a shit about any of us. Why even bother thinking in terms of loyalty, it's completely misaligned with how they operate.
Well, shit.
So on an unrelated note, what's the best alternative available right now?
pis have gotten less exciting over the years.
for those who are purely using the compute side of the pi is not as interesting anymore due to the flood of both 3rd party options, as well as used dirt cheap micro pcs (e.g Optiplex 9020 micros, 7040 micros, thinkcentre 710q)
and for those who program , they have to split based on usecase. for pure robotics and less compute, there isnt much of a reason to use a pi over an arduino. for IoT, using ESP32 are more useful for device to device communication, so pis sat in this weird spot where you needed it for basic compute (e.g. some object detection) or you needed the community behind pi. but since pis are being bought out by corpo, doong hobby work on a pi is too expensive nowadays. to me, pis died after their pricing tiers for memory not really being great (2019)
Booooooooooo!!!!! Boo I say!
I SAY BOO!!!
Gotta buy a share just so I can write angry shareholder letters
Loved the Pi for hosting small services around the house. I've just replaced my Pi4 with a N100, 16GB, 512GB SSD mini pc which is so much faster, not to mention cheaper than a Pi5.
Guess I should stock up while I can huh?
I’ve been a RPI fan since the beginning and have used their boards for all sorts of projects and tinkering. But it’s hard not to feel like it’s losing sight of what made it attractive in the first place: low power and low priced computing. It had its charm in buying a Pi Zero and just chucking emulators on it and handing them out to folks who might want to have a go.
But with the more expensive, more powerful hardware you just can’t really use them for things like that anymore. Just too expensive and too much oomph for the use case.
We’ll see if the company finds its way. But this usually isn’t a good sign…
RIP
So much for them remaining cheap...
Whats events point of going public? Arent they making profit? Or what does it even do for then now?
In general the reasons could be, an opportunity to raise capital meaning they can ramp up production or produce a better product, and/or the current owners want to cash out.
Most of the time is for the owner to cash out. Either now, or in a short time when the ramp up is done, for more money.
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