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You'll see this same behavior anywhere demand greatly exceeds supply. I know I'll never see a Raspberry Pi in real life because they refuse to meet demand for

by getsat 14y ago

You'll see this same behavior anywhere demand greatly exceeds supply. I know I'll never see a Raspberry Pi in real life because they refuse to meet demand for whatever reason, so it doesn't really bother me.

tudorw 14y ago
I am not sure they are refusing, I think they know that to grow a large company takes time, and this is the first version of the first device that is available at scale. And as to the taking advantage, well, none of these people have large quantities, one I believe is doing it for charity, the others, sure, a bit of opportunism, but hey, fortune favours the brave, it was not their fault there is high demand, and ultimately high demand is a good thing for Pi and us :)
- sounds 14y ago
  Although it's unfortunate that some people will not get their Pi, the reality of a lack of supply (just scaling up, like you said) leads the market to do the most efficient thing: Some customers are willing to pay the higher price. If nobody will buy at that high of a markup, you can be sure the prices will come down. So for whatever reason, those who feel it's worth the extra money can get theirs first. Since this is such an inexpensive device, it's certain to become widespread. This price bump will be short lived.
goatforce5 14y ago
They say they'll ship 100,000 units in the next 10 or so weeks. How are they refusing to meet demand?
excuse-me 14y ago
Without making excuses - 'they' are a couple of people doing this on their own time/money. It's like complaining that Linus didn't invest in ramping up Linux to run on more platforms in 1991. Yes they made some mistakes, not realising that they wouldn't be able to handle distribution and handing it off to Farnell/RS at the last minute = well you live and learn Perhaps a silicon valley attitude company would have made a bigger splash, pre-sold the first 10,000 for $100 or done a kickstarter appeal to raise $1M and had an initial run of 100K units. Perhaps someone with west coast connections would have been able to get a few $M from someone at Google/Ebay/Facebook. In my experience trying to get $M from charity foundations for something like this would take years and cost more in marketing than it cost to actually do it - ask the OLPC guys. Funnily enough, their aim was to copy the success of the original BBC micro (= the UK equivalent to the Apple II). Back in the 80s when we actually made things - industry could get government loans to tool up to build products, now we just hand out trillions to banks.

by getsat 14y ago

tudorw 14y ago

I am not sure they are refusing, I think they know that to grow a large company takes time, and this is the first version of the first device that is available at scale. And as to the taking advantage, well, none of these people have large quantities, one I believe is doing it for charity, the others, sure, a bit of opportunism, but hey, fortune favours the brave, it was not their fault there is high demand, and ultimately high demand is a good thing for Pi and us :)

sounds 14y ago
Although it's unfortunate that some people will not get their Pi, the reality of a lack of supply (just scaling up, like you said) leads the market to do the most efficient thing: Some customers are willing to pay the higher price. If nobody will buy at that high of a markup, you can be sure the prices will come down. So for whatever reason, those who feel it's worth the extra money can get theirs first. Since this is such an inexpensive device, it's certain to become widespread. This price bump will be short lived.

goatforce5 14y ago

They say they'll ship 100,000 units in the next 10 or so weeks. How are they refusing to meet demand?

excuse-me 14y ago

Without making excuses - 'they' are a couple of people doing this on their own time/money. It's like complaining that Linus didn't invest in ramping up Linux to run on more platforms in 1991. Yes they made some mistakes, not realising that they wouldn't be able to handle distribution and handing it off to Farnell/RS at the last minute = well you live and learn Perhaps a silicon valley attitude company would have made a bigger splash, pre-sold the first 10,000 for $100 or done a kickstarter appeal to raise $1M and had an initial run of 100K units. Perhaps someone with west coast connections would have been able to get a few $M from someone at Google/Ebay/Facebook. In my experience trying to get $M from charity foundations for something like this would take years and cost more in marketing than it cost to actually do it - ask the OLPC guys. Funnily enough, their aim was to copy the success of the original BBC micro (= the UK equivalent to the Apple II). Back in the 80s when we actually made things - industry could get government loans to tool up to build products, now we just hand out trillions to banks.