> - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? And Pi isn't eve

> - people saying that there are "more performant" devices. Sure, there are. How do they perform in terms of kernel support and documentation? And Pi isn't even supported fully in upstream kernel! And it's so much worse in competitors... > The truth is that the Raspberry Pi SBCs are unique because they are the product of their funding model. If you want "more performant" devices that are as good, you might need to front up the cash. Not really. The key point why people want it is that they are by far most seamless product out of the competition (sans maybe some x86 ones I guess). 3rd-party patched kernel is always PITA especially over long lifetime but rPi got theirs in "near vanilla" debian-derivative so there is very little friction. And on top of that of course ecosystem that grew around it. *if* there was competitor that have similar featureset yet work at 100% vanilla kernel there would be a chance but there is always some problem to deal with.