Raspberry Pi launches its IPO
raspberrypi.com
It was nice knowing Raspberry Pi while they lasted. Going to suck losing something that has changed the homegrown embedded system hobby forever.
You are viewing a single comment
It was nice knowing Raspberry Pi while they lasted. Going to suck losing something that has changed the homegrown embedded system hobby forever.
Every time a company goes public, they become more and more profitable until the only way to continue on that trajectory is to worsen their own product.
Think they'll still be selling the Pico for $4 or the Zero for $15 after they're reporting to shareholders?
Big pharma companies jack up the prices of life saving medicine that's been affordable for decades and don't lose a bit of sleep. You bet your ass a hobby electronics company will jack up prices as far as they think they can.
Price is one thing but the push for returns on investments is massive, this means that it's time to start cutting corners on everything (except maybe marketing! Yea!). Quality, repairability, and innovation all start to crumble.
Don't call Raspberry a hobbyist electronics company. Their primary consumer has been business and enterprise customers for years now, industrial/controls companies jumped all over the pi as a super easy drop-in board that can be programmed by any code monkey.
The Pi hardware shortage of the last few years has mostly been because of this demand, with Raspberry openly saying they were prioritizing bulk corporate orders foe their production volume over hobby consumers. Fuck the little guy, Pi is dead.