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At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

pcworld.com

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Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#71

Post by kkielhofner »

mmastrac wrote: post #61
kkielhofner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The answer to all of this is "where's the fun in that"? I can afford to pay Amazon How is this any different from self-hosting on any other hardware? Other than the admittedly fun and engaging aspect of putting the work in to string together a bunch of USB hubs, cabling, and SATA bridges, etc. I think a lot of that thrill comes from the challenges of pounding a square peg into a round hole along the journey. Again,…

You're right about the square peg, but the big difference is the size of the community. I could do this work on any platform but if there's only a handful of people that know what a MangoPi or KiwiPi (names invented) can do, there's a whole lot of context to understand how cool a hack is. Ditto for reading about projects -- it's great that Alice's Intel nuc can serve X pages per second, but it's easier to read and un…

The comparison to other ARM SBCs is kind of a non-starter to me considering what the software support and ecosystem/community looks like. I have an entire graveyard of ARM SBC Raspberry Pi alternatives and I've given up on that approach due to the horrendous software support and fringe ecosystem.

However, I'm primarily talking about x86_64 here and is has the broadest software support and biggest community of all.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#72

Post by KennyBlanken »

sshine wrote: post #58
washadjeffmad wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to reinforce what another commentor said, Pis were still being made available to sectors like business and education, so vendors who built products around rpi were still able to operate. We worked on a project in 2021 where we needed around 150 and had no problem sourcing them from a single vendor at MSRP alongside their product. Of course, that's not what I expected since I'd been personally affected by the sho…

> vendors who built products around rpi were still able to operate > We worked on a project in 2021 where we needed around 150 and had no problem sourcing We had minor sourcing difficulties ordering much fewer for production (10-15).

That's because Eben was telling everyone it was about "protecting jobs" when it was really just about selling to the largest companies. All the cottage industry folks who needed Rpis here and there? They could get fucked as far as Eben was concerned.

Basically: greed (lower overhead from larger orders) and more greed (chasing large companies, I guess in the hopes of securing fat, profitable long term contracts, or maybe donations, or both) and probably trying to cut out distributors, too (the "email us and we'll work something out" he kept telling everyone), again because of greed.

Raspberry Pi foundation burned their brand image and good will to the ground. Everyone has moved on to using clones, other ARM devices, embedded systems that have AI accelerators, old PCs and laptops, ESP32's, and so on.

Half the shit people were doing with Rpis were better suited for things like ESP32's anyway.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#73

Post by michrassena »

I have a small stack of Raspberry Pi boards that I bought one at a time over the last few years. My issue with them is I could never buy three or four at once. I was always hit with the full shipping cost on something that weighs an ounce. As far as I know this has always been the case in the US.

I want to be able to buy a few at a time, like any other product.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#74

Post by 4gotunameagain »

kytazo wrote: post #28
orra wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, no. “Don't expect a Pi 5 five next year,” Upton said [in December 2022], explaining that the Pi team sees 2023 as a year to spend “recovering from what just happened to all of us [COVID, supply chain issues].” https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/21/no_rpi_5_2023/

I'm wondering why other manufacturers don't look like impacted as much from the covid supply chain disruptions as they pose to be in every given chance.

I think it has to do with the fact that the majority of their product line is based on a few very specific SoCs that are quite hard to replace so fast.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#75

Post by michrassena »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #72
sshine wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vendors who built products around rpi were still able to operate > We worked on a project in 2021 where we needed around 150 and had no problem sourcing We had minor sourcing difficulties ordering much fewer for production (10-15).

That's because Eben was telling everyone it was about "protecting jobs" when it was really just about selling to the largest companies. All the cottage industry folks who needed Rpis here and there? They could get fucked as far as Eben was concerned. Basically: greed (lower overhead from larger orders) and more greed (chasing large companies, I guess in the hopes of securing fat, profitable long term contracts, or ma…

I think I've only ever used the row of GPIO pins on the Pi for UART, and for running the dog-slow screens that use up most of them. These days, I'd put Micropython on a Pi Pico or other MCU for GPIO.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#76

Post by martin_a »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #51
Roark66 wrote: post #42

>"...should began this July..." Seriously? Should? How. Many. Times. Have we heard it already? In the timeless words of George W Bush Junior "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... Wait, I can't be fooled again!" No way I'm going to get hopeful here and then pi locator will show one pi zero 2 W in entire Europe, in the one shop in Belgium the owner of refuses to ship out of his country... How many cool open sour…

Not coming back? But they clearly are? Pimoroni was shipping Pi 4Bs last week. It has nothing to do with "burning through the charitable donation money". The Pi is sold by a (profitable, AFAIK) wholly-owned subsidiary, the Raspberry Pi Trading Company. Manufacturing them does not absorb Foundation money at all. They have been supply-constrained on components. It's that simple, surely. Eben Upton has said it again and…

> Pimoroni was shipping Pi 4Bs last week.

How many? Four? Six? Did they go to scalpers as usual?

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#77

Post by dingledork69 »

t43562 wrote: post #24
euniceee3 wrote: post #10

The shortage ruined the brand for me. Any sort of commercial product based on this cheap platform had supply issues, which caused a pivot. I had an old boss balk at me for suggesting we use Pi's back in 2013, I now see why. Glad to see the gouging finally come to an end!

The reason hobbyists had shortages was because they allocated supply to businesses to help them stay afloat. Possibly your old boss was not right.

I thought the raspberry pi was meant to be an educational diy system? Prioritizing businesses over hobbyists seems to go against that.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#78

Post by dingledork69 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #55
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #38

Each time this topic comes up, some broad threads emerge: - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particularly supply-constrained in the UK until about five or six months into the pandemic. Yeah, som…

> - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? One of the main options pointed at is low-power x86 boxes, which are better than Pis ever were. The rest of the ARM ecosystem is, I agree, poor . > - people (often Americans) saying that the Pi has been "supply-constrained for five years". It really hasn't; it wasn't particula…

> Then it really has; there being a supply in the UK isn't exactly useful to most of the world.

There being a shortage in the US isn't exactly relevant to most of the world.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#79

Post by my123 »

bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #51
Roark66 wrote: post #42

>"...should began this July..." Seriously? Should? How. Many. Times. Have we heard it already? In the timeless words of George W Bush Junior "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice... Wait, I can't be fooled again!" No way I'm going to get hopeful here and then pi locator will show one pi zero 2 W in entire Europe, in the one shop in Belgium the owner of refuses to ship out of his country... How many cool open sour…

Not coming back? But they clearly are? Pimoroni was shipping Pi 4Bs last week. It has nothing to do with "burning through the charitable donation money". The Pi is sold by a (profitable, AFAIK) wholly-owned subsidiary, the Raspberry Pi Trading Company. Manufacturing them does not absorb Foundation money at all. They have been supply-constrained on components. It's that simple, surely. Eben Upton has said it again and…

Raspberry Pi Ltd is not wholly owned by the RPF anymore. They did raise outside funding a while back.

Re: At last, the Raspberry Pi shortage is finally coming to an end

#80

Post by tinix »

lotsoweiners wrote: post #54
paulcole wrote: post #37

Thank god! I’ve been so frustrated I couldn’t get one of these and then put it in a drawer and immediately forget about it.

Same. I used to have an alert to notify me when pretty much any Pi was in stock. I’d purchase and stick them in a drawer. I have a drawer full of Pi’s that have never been turned on.

Got any 8gb CM4? I'll buy one from you...
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