4 ms·

I'm going to go ahead and say it. It doesn't count until I can buy them in any quantity at any time for $9 each. Shipping to a few backers doesn't count. "One p

I'm going to go ahead and say it. It doesn't count until I can buy them in any quantity at any time for $9 each. Shipping to a few backers doesn't count. "One per customer, supplies limited" doesn't count. 6 month waiting time, "special" shipping charges/handling fees/only available as part of a more expensive "kit"... you get the idea. This is a bog-standard device in a sea of similar SBC's. The entire magic here is the price. Honestly, I don't even "believe" in the Pi zero yet. It could still turn out to be a publicity stunt produced in a very limited quantity just to get everyone talking. Until its a product you buy a dozen at a time and leave behind in the projects in your wake, the magic hasn't happened yet. Otherwise, you pull it out of those projects because its a rare specimen you might not be able to get another of any time soon. It doesn't matter if it only cost $9 if you can't get any more of them. But I want to believe!

cbd1984 11y ago
To expand on your point: "Quantity has a quality all its own." — Stalin The point of cheap computing is ubiquitous computing. Doing things you couldn't seriously imagine previously because it would have felt like an "investment" and you would have psychologically needed a "return" on that investment, even if you intellectually understood that it was less than X cups of coffee or that you'd only be mildly peeved if you spent that much on a book which turned out to be a loser. This is related to threshold pricing: The fact that $20.00 looks different from $19.99, and that that kind of thing has an impact. However, this goes beyond just-under pricing; it extends to things which aren't blatant black-hat mind hacking tricks, into more benign territory where a $50.00 project just feels different from a $20.00 project, even if it involves the same amount of labor; the $50.00 project feels like "This is close to $100 of equipment. I need to make this count", but the $20.00 project feels like "This is one new book's worth of stuff. It might work, it might not. Worth a shot." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_price-point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_price-point http://www.frugalsolutions.org/Toolbox/Lower-price-threshold.aspx http://www.frugalsolutions.org/Toolbox/Lower-price-threshold... The final piece is what you mentioned: Scarcity makes things psychologically valuable. This is a well-known effect. If some piece of your build is rare, even if it was cheap, it still has a value which skews your willingness to use it. It's suddenly something which can't be "wasted". OTOH, if you know you could buy a dozen of them at any time and get them in a few days with the cheap shipping option, the psychological resistance to using them goes way down.
Artemis2 11y ago
You can pre-order multiple boards on their website, with affordable shipping: http://getchip.com/ http://getchip.com/ The maximum order quantity is 5 C.H.I.Ps per order, which sounds in line with them having a limited production capacity and wanting to spread it over more customers.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Pre-order is not order.
vegabook 11y ago
What got me in was the pocket-chip add on. Kind of a PDA wrapper that will let me do a little bit of IoT without too much soldering! That was the unique story here for me as opposed to the dozens of other cheap SBCs.
sixothree 11y ago
I couldn't be more disappointed with Raspberry Pi regarding their availability of the Zero. It's been four months since they announced "immediate availability" and seemingly the only way you can get a $5 Pi is to buy a $40 bundle. If you can't buy it in numbers needed then it simply doesn't exist.
- j1vms 11y ago
  Firstly, only kudos to them for having designed the Zero in the first place, and I'm sure they intended it to be available in volume this many months after release. However, until they can reach volume on a major released project (e.g. the Zero), they should be careful about getting too much press visibility on said product. As of 2016, Raspberry Pi is world-wide name with international name recognition, and it can only hurt the organization when its products marketed at a $5 USD price point are, in practice, only really available at $40+ USD, to the majority of its potential customers, and this many months after release.
  - MarcScott 11y ago
    On the plus side - all the donations the Raspberry Pi Foundation received from sales of the Zero helped fund a teacher training course that is being rolled out across the United States.
    - j1vms 11y ago
      That is a indeed a plus. Indeed in the gparent comment I only wished to point out 1 way in which the organization could improve should they wish. Getting open source design part-sourced, assembled and then shipped in volume levels is still a business process in nascency. I'm sure they face abundant challenges on the supplier-side. Regardless, I do hope that against all odds, volume manufactured open source hardware becomes a force to be reckoned with in the decades to come - perhaps analogously to how FOSS Linux dominated in its own and ever-expanding arena.
  - makomk 11y ago
    The Raspberry Pi Foundation don't care, never have, and it's never really come back to bite them because the tech press likes the story they're selling. The $5 British computer makes for a great narrative, and it's a great PR technique too; for instance, every comment thread on BBC's micro:bit is full of people arguing that the only reason they didn't use the $5 Pi Zero is because of NIH syndrome. They've understood that PR is worth screwing users over since day minus-one. Even before the Pi launched, they were encouraging their supporters to promote it to non-technical users as a media box and dismissing suggestions that this might leave a bad impression because they couldn't get it working. Cut to after the launch, and the narrative is that the Pi is getting unfair criticism from non-technical users who mistakenly thought it was a media box when obviously it isn't.
hinkley 11y ago
I got so burned on the Pebble and its four months of bullshit stalling that I don't participate in Kickstarter anymore. I think we need something more like an accelerator for these projects where they take a bigger cut but help people with their pitch video and especially with logistics. A thing stops being new and interesting if you have to wait that long to get it. The competition doesn't stop improving their product and/or price point just because you have supply chain problems. And it sucks all the joy out of the purchase to have to wait 3+ extra months for something you already paid for.
- NiftyFifty 11y ago
  If you recall, Kickstarter changed it's status to a charity type organization ... ergo, invest at your own risk. Also ... it was basically facilitating fraud, if they didn't. Hopefully you can see the conflict of interest that Kickstarter started to get funk from, by basically creating a fronting for money laundering opportunities. Kickstarter is basically turning into Fleabay and pro-crime vs. pro-startup. Kind of sad, actually.
- slededit 11y ago
  You didn't really pay for anything except a promise that they would maybe try to get you something. Kickstarter has all the risks of an investor with none of the payoff - like equity in the business.
asfarley 11y ago
100% agreed. The whole CHIP/Pi Zero "out of stock indefinitely" is the ultimate bottom line.

cbd1984 11y ago

To expand on your point: "Quantity has a quality all its own." — Stalin The point of cheap computing is ubiquitous computing. Doing things you couldn't seriously imagine previously because it would have felt like an "investment" and you would have psychologically needed a "return" on that investment, even if you intellectually understood that it was less than X cups of coffee or that you'd only be mildly peeved if you spent that much on a book which turned out to be a loser. This is related to threshold pricing: The fact that $20.00 looks different from $19.99, and that that kind of thing has an impact. However, this goes beyond just-under pricing; it extends to things which aren't blatant black-hat mind hacking tricks, into more benign territory where a $50.00 project just feels different from a $20.00 project, even if it involves the same amount of labor; the $50.00 project feels like "This is close to $100 of equipment. I need to make this count", but the $20.00 project feels like "This is one new book's worth of stuff. It might work, it might not. Worth a shot." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_price-point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_price-point http://www.frugalsolutions.org/Toolbox/Lower-price-threshold.aspx http://www.frugalsolutions.org/Toolbox/Lower-price-threshold... The final piece is what you mentioned: Scarcity makes things psychologically valuable. This is a well-known effect. If some piece of your build is rare, even if it was cheap, it still has a value which skews your willingness to use it. It's suddenly something which can't be "wasted". OTOH, if you know you could buy a dozen of them at any time and get them in a few days with the cheap shipping option, the psychological resistance to using them goes way down.

Artemis2 11y ago

You can pre-order multiple boards on their website, with affordable shipping: http://getchip.com/ http://getchip.com/ The maximum order quantity is 5 C.H.I.Ps per order, which sounds in line with them having a limited production capacity and wanting to spread it over more customers.

jacquesm 11y ago
Pre-order is not order.

vegabook 11y ago

What got me in was the pocket-chip add on. Kind of a PDA wrapper that will let me do a little bit of IoT without too much soldering! That was the unique story here for me as opposed to the dozens of other cheap SBCs.

sixothree 11y ago

I couldn't be more disappointed with Raspberry Pi regarding their availability of the Zero. It's been four months since they announced "immediate availability" and seemingly the only way you can get a $5 Pi is to buy a $40 bundle. If you can't buy it in numbers needed then it simply doesn't exist.

j1vms 11y ago
Firstly, only kudos to them for having designed the Zero in the first place, and I'm sure they intended it to be available in volume this many months after release. However, until they can reach volume on a major released project (e.g. the Zero), they should be careful about getting too much press visibility on said product. As of 2016, Raspberry Pi is world-wide name with international name recognition, and it can only hurt the organization when its products marketed at a $5 USD price point are, in practice, only really available at $40+ USD, to the majority of its potential customers, and this many months after release.
- MarcScott 11y ago
  On the plus side - all the donations the Raspberry Pi Foundation received from sales of the Zero helped fund a teacher training course that is being rolled out across the United States.
  - j1vms 11y ago
    That is a indeed a plus. Indeed in the gparent comment I only wished to point out 1 way in which the organization could improve should they wish. Getting open source design part-sourced, assembled and then shipped in volume levels is still a business process in nascency. I'm sure they face abundant challenges on the supplier-side. Regardless, I do hope that against all odds, volume manufactured open source hardware becomes a force to be reckoned with in the decades to come - perhaps analogously to how FOSS Linux dominated in its own and ever-expanding arena.
- makomk 11y ago
  The Raspberry Pi Foundation don't care, never have, and it's never really come back to bite them because the tech press likes the story they're selling. The $5 British computer makes for a great narrative, and it's a great PR technique too; for instance, every comment thread on BBC's micro:bit is full of people arguing that the only reason they didn't use the $5 Pi Zero is because of NIH syndrome. They've understood that PR is worth screwing users over since day minus-one. Even before the Pi launched, they were encouraging their supporters to promote it to non-technical users as a media box and dismissing suggestions that this might leave a bad impression because they couldn't get it working. Cut to after the launch, and the narrative is that the Pi is getting unfair criticism from non-technical users who mistakenly thought it was a media box when obviously it isn't.

hinkley 11y ago

I got so burned on the Pebble and its four months of bullshit stalling that I don't participate in Kickstarter anymore. I think we need something more like an accelerator for these projects where they take a bigger cut but help people with their pitch video and especially with logistics. A thing stops being new and interesting if you have to wait that long to get it. The competition doesn't stop improving their product and/or price point just because you have supply chain problems. And it sucks all the joy out of the purchase to have to wait 3+ extra months for something you already paid for.

NiftyFifty 11y ago
If you recall, Kickstarter changed it's status to a charity type organization ... ergo, invest at your own risk. Also ... it was basically facilitating fraud, if they didn't. Hopefully you can see the conflict of interest that Kickstarter started to get funk from, by basically creating a fronting for money laundering opportunities. Kickstarter is basically turning into Fleabay and pro-crime vs. pro-startup. Kind of sad, actually.
slededit 11y ago
You didn't really pay for anything except a promise that they would maybe try to get you something. Kickstarter has all the risks of an investor with none of the payoff - like equity in the business.

asfarley 11y ago

100% agreed. The whole CHIP/Pi Zero "out of stock indefinitely" is the ultimate bottom line.