4 ms·

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

• avian 3y ago
  You are both right. Supply was allocated to businesses, but there was not enough for every business, so quite many of them could not buy Raspberry Pis for their products. Then again, everyone was having major supply issues. Yes, you could pivot from the "hobby" R. Pi to a "serious" industrial brand that had sales people talk big words about how they don't have these "beginner player" issues - right up to when it was time to deliver and suddenly they start talking about 100+ week lead times and 2025 delivery dates...
• dingledork69 3y ago
  I thought the raspberry pi was meant to be an educational diy system? Prioritizing businesses over hobbyists seems to go against that.
  • t43562 3y ago
    Lots of small businesses sprang up that used it - perhaps some of them were even started by hobbyists. If they didn't get their supply it would have cause a loss of jobs and hardship. The Pi Foundation decided to help those people keep their jobs during COVID etc which seems to be the clear moral choice.
    • dingledork69 3y ago
      They surely could have pivoted to an alternative, potentially creating more jobs in the progress. Most commercial raspberry pi projects should be microcontrollers anyway, and certainly not be running on the sdcard.
      • t43562 3y ago
        Obviously they didn't think so - whereas hobbyists can do so too and have no risks to worry about.